Oneohtrix Point Never // Age Of (Warp Records)

#43

First impression - what a load of pretentious avant-garde wank this is. Someone’s trying to fool me, surely. I thought the same of Garden of Delete.

I get that people deeply respect this guy though, and I reckon I should give it a few listens. My head probably isn’t ready for the awesomeness. I’m getting old, my inner engine for exploration is shutting down and I’m just into 90’s ambient and glitch music. This is the moment where I’m pondering whether my music curtains are coming down - will I appreciate new styles again? 98% of everything new coming out sounds like garbage to me.

But yeah, give it a few listens, maybe I’ll like it eventually. The ones that grow on you are often the best ones.

#44

Go listen to his early albums. I’m one of those people that deeply respect opn and I feel like this is a load of pretentious avant-garde wank.

#45

Yeah, I listened to Replica quite a bit when it came out, and enjoyed that. R Plus Seven has its moments too. :slight_smile:

#46

gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang

I’m really glad I’m not alone in disliking this. When all the positive reviews came out I didn’t understand the hype at all. The worst parts for me were definitely the tracks with the singing, like you’d have a beautiful, strange track like “Age Of” to start and then go straight into the awful, warbling wank of “Babylon.” And the concept is pretty awful upon examination (really, you’re addicted to the internet? Join the club).

I think the problem may be that this is his first “post-fame” album. He started doing so many collaborations with David Byrne, FKA twigs, etc. and brought that spirit into the new record, and it kind of overtook it. I remember reading somewhere him saying James Blake pared down his more flamboyant touches. I wonder what we might have gotten if that outside influence hadn’t penetrated.

I think I prefer him when he’s doing “pure” music, like with Rifts where it’s just melodies and arpeggios and R Plus Seven where there isn’t really any words, it’s just sound spaces. This record definitely isn’t that.

#47

v surprised people are so anti-GoD! it’s such a fucking singular piece of work, the concept is so detailed and it really sounds like something totally of its own universe, to me…

struggling to crack into Age Of so far. i like ‘We’ll Take It’ a lot. i havent read much of the surrounding ~literature yet so that will prob illuminate it.

here’s another one i’ve got bookmarked, interview with the great colin joyce

#48

Yeah I mean I think the nature of this tour says it all. Disney Hall, The Armory, $60+ tickets, live production loaded with empty signifiers. He’s creating work for museum curators, creative directors, and art collectors, not kids feeling alienated in their rooms hungry for any shred of earnest expression. I guess it was inevitable. Now where’s the fresh crop of alienated youngsters?

@chalravens I like GoD too. Especially Mutant Standard. It’s the closest he’s given us to a rave banger, which I would LOVE him to lean into.

#49

me, and yes. I totally get not being into what’s going on here, like I haven’t been paying attention to any of the conceptual packaging around it, but there’s still an extreme nerdiness to where he’s been going with pop music that doesn’t really do beats but also has a bunch of precisely quantized composition stuff going on. But I’ve been having a great time with it, I really like how Eli Keszler gets utilized towards the end of the album in contrast to the stuff before. Like I still prefer the bottom-up approach to collaboration with Keszler that Laurel Halo had on Dust, but there’s something about the dictatorial approach to the collaboration that Lopatin seems to take here, or with using Purient screaming as a momentary flash of color on a couple of tracks, combined with James Blake as sort of an editor to pull Lopatin back. It ends up in a best of both worlds situation for me, where I’m getting a strong idiosyncratic vision but having it go down easier than something like G.O.D (which I like but feels too heavy for me to want to come back to much).

#50

This is easily my favourite work of OPN. Surprised at the amount of negativity towards this as I think it also may be closest to his most accessible stuff.