when we were younger & better

Daniel Lopatin has been putting out longform synthesizer meditations under the curious moniker Oneohtrix Point Never (pretty sure I read that it’s supposed to be pronounced like a radio station frequency, i.e. 106.7 with ‘trix’ and ‘never’ instead of 6 and 7). Like many artists in the burgeoning DIY ambient/drone scene, he spreads his work across a multitude of extremely limited CD-Rs and tapes, which can be kind of a hassle to track down. Luckily, he’s put out Rifts to compile the best sounds off three of his latest albums onto one 2XCD release. OPN takes a lot of cues from early new-age ambient innovators like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, and all of the analog synths sound like they’re coming at you from a mid-70’s space documentary. It conjures up some neat images, and the whole retro-futurist vibe gives it a different spin than other ambient stuff. If you dig the synthy side of Emeralds, you’ll probably dig this, as well as the Skyramps project that Lopatin and Mark McGuire from Emeralds collaborated on a few years ago, which I just might post soon. Enjoy

1 / 2

For Fans Of: Emeralds, Tangerine Dream, Sun Araw

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- Brian B.