Daniel Lopatin once described his vaporous synth-and-sample collages as trying to capture the feeling of lying in a dentist’s chair before a procedure and hearing soft rock in the background—a banal experience that nevertheless evokes an almost cosmic unpleasantness, your daily dose of dystopia, writ small. Following a series of fruitful collaborations with The Weeknd (including writing and production on After Hours, Dawn FM and Hurry Up Tomorrow), 2025’s Tranquilizer further fixes his Eno-like ability to create music that that feels both abstract but surprisingly easy to listen to, touching on jazz ballads (“Modern Lust”), reggae (“Cherry Blue”) and Windows 95-era visions of “worldbeat” (“Storm Show”) that find grandeur in the kitschiest corners of our cultural memory.