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Oneohtrix Point Never - Zones Without People (Arbor)
Right to the point of why Oneohtrix Point Never's Zones Without People is successful is at its heart its trance music. Within that it's engaging, melodic, repetitive and not altogether foreign. Rather, OPN stems from more of a conscious effort to reinterpret modernity through a perspective that was weaned on VHS and late night satellite beams. A solo project of Daniel Lopatin, OPN has emerged as the forefront of the analog synth movement by truly demonstrating compositional skill over effects and infusing his material with warmth that contradicts the process. But at its core, Trance is really the genre this most heavily falls into in the best sense possible. You can toss around systems and theory but tracks like 'Computer Vision' and 'Zones Without People' get to some kind of core repetitions that are layered and constantly changing. That kind of loss of identity amidst the waves of pattern is ultimately the joy of trance based electronic music for the listener. This process culminates in the ballad-like opening of 'Learning to Control Myself' that begins the second side of the album. Here, Lopatin exposes through hypnotic figures a romantic progression and interrupts it with a meltdown of dark side electronics. While the transition in the piece leaves something to be desired for it still reveals a breadth of scope absent among his more conservative peers. This aggressive streak continues on 'Emil Gorman' but reverses the technique leading back into the lulling synth gauze to the effect of being sucked into a planitarium skyline. But really, its album closer 'Hyperdawn' that sums up the essence of the album, a remarkable synthesis of drama, melody and repetition with its looping layers of phrasings and countering. Its not a heavy handed nostalgia, it's forward thinking music.by
STEVE LOWENTHAL on
9/5/2010
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