There’s an uncanny quality about Daniel Lopatin’s music as Oneohtrix Point Never, the sense of a half-remembered past arranged in ways that only make it feel further away. Pivoting from the nu-metal memories of Garden of Delete, Age Of—produced in part by electro-soul auteur James Blake—has a compact, almost baroque quality, with touches of medieval music (“The Station,” “Myriad.Industries”), hymns (“Warning”), and pastoral bits of ambience (“Toys 2”), balancing the avant-garde with an instinct for melody and play that have always set Lopatin’s music apart. Most striking—and unexpected—are Lopatin’s forays into conventionally structured, vocal-based songs (“Babylon,” “Black Snow,” featuring ANOHNI), which bring his music to the brink of familiarity without ever settling in.
- 2013
- Aphex Twin
- Autechre
- Laurel Halo
- Andy Stott