Oneohtrix Point Never – Garden Of Delete
Seeing as I’d rather let the music speak for itself (and I wouldn’t even know how to do any kind of justice to the complex tapestry of sounds found on this record by attempting to verbalise them), all I can really do is compare G.O.D. to previous OPN albums that I love:
Returnal was among the best new albums I heard in 2010.
Replica is among the best new albums I have heard this decade.
R Plus Seven is among the best albums I have ever heard.
Garden Of Delete is among the best new albums I have heard in 2015.
(*one could replace the word “best” with “most interesting” and the same would be true.)
However, more than my subjective appraisal of the supposed quality of this piece of work, the fact that Daniel Lopatin continually manages to progress his sound so outstandingly with each Oneohtrix release is testament to the man’s creative mind and tireless quest to provide his audience with something more, time after time, and not just rest on his laurels. Each OPN release post-Rifts has felt like its own unique soundworld, with not just the timbral palette being idiosyncratic, but the overarching structure and emotional resonance remaining remarkably consistent throughout the entire duration of the work. Of course, there are vestiges of his previous output harboured within each subsequent record, but these are vastly outweighed by the amount of change to every aspect of the music, all of which sounds so organic, as if the style is arrived at by a natural evolutionary process rather than a conscious effort on the part of its creator.
I’ll also add that most of my opinions of OPN albums have benefitted from numerous listens, with the music being so rich and dense as to make it unfeasible to pick up on every little detail on the first couple of plays. Each album has gone up immeasurably in my estimations with each re-listen, allowing me to become attuned to the essence of the record and discover the finer brushstrokes hidden away on the surface of the sonic canvas.
Finally, whilst I don’t find G.O.D. to be as beautiful or emotional as other albums by Lopatin, it nevertheless contains enough moments of beauty and emotion to be well worth anyone’s time.
RIYL: Electronic music you can’t dance to; pop music you can’t sing along to; rock music you can’t play air guitar to; ambient music you can’t fall asleep to.