Oneothrix Point Never-Garden of Delete (2015)

Oneothrix Point Never-Garden of Delete (2015)

“Human nature is complex. Even if we do have inclinations toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control.”

Steven Pinker

By: Ghost Writer

I have been following Daniel Lopatin's work as Oneothrix Point Never for a long time now, his sonic evolution is admirable, coming from the worlds of noise, synth music and hid experiments with the mind bending genre known as juke, Lopatin has slowly revealed himself as a guy in a lab coat and willing to go really wild with his musical experiments, unafraid of going into an unknown zone were few people have often dared to go, expressing his admiration for uncommon sound creators like Aphex Twin, James Ferraro, DJ Premier or Dj Skrew.

Garden of Delete, or GOD if you wish to call it that way is a new step forward in the singular career of Lopatin, Lopatin seems totally confident in his rhythmic exploration, taking equal inspiration from the worlds of Techno, Juke, Hip Hop and even the frenzied minimalism of people like Steve Reich and Philip Glass, and is doe ially the influence of Reich, the one most recognizable on Ezra, with Lopatin assimilating the mechanics of dreams, where one simply doesn't know exactly how it starts, for Lopatin, this thing is so free form that there is not even a concrete ending.

There are a couple of mini jams they belong definitely to the purple narcoleptic midnight world of Texan Dj Skrew, like in the eerie ECCOJAMC1, which only accentuates the abstract nature of the whole recording, but Lopatin suddenly retreat to his almost innocuous electronic exercises, abruptly interrupted sometimes by harsh noise, acid distorted lines, intense beats and then the unexpected glossy arpeggios, Lopatin plays in a perfect way with all the elements at his reach, varying the speed in order to create a futuristic symphony for cyborgs.

In Mutant Standards the synthesizer bass lines appear in the form of schizophrenic fragmented almost percussive instruments, Lopatin again plays here with repetition and distortion, at times reminding us of noise terrorists Throbbing Gristle, this while Lopatin goes really acrobatic at times with his unstable musical-unmusical gestures.

Child of Rage is not exactly the type of stuff I like, it reminds me if the too polished and superficial stuff James Ferraro does these days, I certainly love the baroque twist Lopatin gives to the composition and his proximity to ambient which also gives him closeness to the work of the great work of The Caretaker (which Lopatin also invokes at times on Freaky Eyes), and also makes me thing that within the realm of abstract electronica, Lopatin is trying to be as prog as he can, with unsuspected time changes more closer to an epileptic patient, than to Yes, for example.

Tunes like Lift make this Garden of Delete almost impossible to classify, and I sense this time Lopatin has sacrificed quality for quantity, even for Aphex Twin complex standards, Lopatin has gone too far, delivering music that is to diverse, too loose, distant and unsympathetic, nit that I wish Lopatin was more accessible, but in a way, Garden of Delete is Lopatin's Tales from Topographic Oceans, even such talented complex minds need a little restrain, sometimes.