Oneohtrix Point Never - Rifts

"Daniel Lopatin has just set a new standard for electronic music in the 21st century" - Glowing Raw

In the world of electronic music there is a spectrum. On one side of that world is a place where hook filled dance pop techno lives and thrives....but, the other side of the world, is a strange place filled with even stranger characters who will fill your head with harsh experimental shredding,and glitchy, droning mayhem that will swallow you alive.

Oneohtrix Point Never lives for the most part, in the latter place. OPN is the recording name of Brooklyn based musician/producer Daniel Lopatin. I found out about him from this blog called Glowing Raw. Their unrelenting praise for his music convinced me to check it out. The album 'Rifts' is a compilation of three other albums he released over the last few years, with some odds and ends thrown in. It clocks in at nearly two and a half hours and to be honest, I don't think I have ever listened to it all in one sitting. So let's start with the the first third of the album, previously released as 'Betrayed in The Octagon.' Here is the cover.

Because this music is so dense, and because there is so much of it, I have been listening to it for months and I keep hearing new things, or things I forgot about. Lopatin is a masterful sound craftsman who knows how to construct a sonic world around a listener, if they are patient enough to wait for it. This is how he describes his own process.

"The goal is to make music with the same intensity as Michelangelo's sculptures — like beautiful, seamless figures, carved almost violently out of gigantic blocks of super heavy, solid marble. The process of stripping away towards something elemental or burying something elemental within a vast world of sound is something that I'm into." -Daniel Lopatin (OPN)

Lopatin is standing on the shoulders of giants (Harmonia, Eno etc). The giants who pioneered spacey synth music back in the 60s and 70s and even 80s. His sound is a smooth blend of kosmiche, ambient, drone, but it is also entirely futuristic and electronic. Photo break.

It's a fascinating idea. The world looks to the future and tries to imagine all the possibilities. There is hope for all the things one can't even begin to imagine. An aesthetic is born out of that, and becomes the prevalent view of what the future can and will be. Inevitably, time passes and the future is nothing like what it was expected to be. Standing there in that moment, one gains great perspective. Being able to observe the uninhibited dreams of the people of the past, and how their hopes didn't come to fruition. It's the paradox of lost futures. It seems so clear now. It is always the present, and things will change, but it will never be the future. A seemingly obvious observation, but its a trap that we are all constantly falling into. Turn on the TV at any moment, and you won't have to wait long before you learn that the "future is now" and that "things will never be the same." You are being sold the nostalgia for lost futures. It's this puzzling paradox that Daniel Lopatin understands. He takes it and folds it in on itself countless times and embeds it into his vast soundscapes, until you are lost in space-time. Alright, enough of that. Check out the covers to 'Zones Without People' and 'Russian Mind' (in that order).

I highly encourage you to check out this sound-scape space-epic. After a while you will sink right in, and you'll never be able to find your way out. I may add to this later, but for now, here is the cover to 'Rifts' the compilation, and you'll find the link below, along with some other stuff including a super interesting interview.



Oneohtrix Point Never - Rifts pt. 1

Oneohtrix Point Never - Rifts pt. 2

Oneohtrix Point Never MySpace

Interview with Daniel Lopatin of Oneohtrix Point Never

Arms and Sleepers - Matador

So it's been like two months since I posted something, but an album has come to my attention that simply must be shared. The band is a duo called Arms and Sleepers and they have been making music since 2006. They have released around half a dozen various items, EPs, or LPs or demos or split albums. Matador is the band's most recent full length album and may be the crown jewel of their catalog. Here is the cover:

I found out about this band very much by accident, and oh what a great accident it was. I saw the album on this blog that I sometimes visit, and downloaded it for no reason. Curiosity is enough sometimes. And it sat on my computer for a little while, getting dusty. Then, in preparation for my trip to Europe over winter break, I looked at what bands would be playing in the cities I would be in. I saw Arms and Sleepers was going to be at a Tavern in East London and the name rung and bell, so I went and found the album and put it on. On my trip I planned on seeing Wavves and the XX and maybe some others, but the only band I actually ended up seeing was Arms and Sleepers.

From what I have heard of their other music, this album stands out as their best work. That might just be organic artistic growth but there is a distinct shift in the form of the song structure. They are so carefully put together. The layers creep in slowly, and change the tone of the song, keeping things fresh and interesting. Another big change are the vocals, which are almost not present in their other music, but have an important role in this album. Song that seem to be instrumental, break out half-way through with fuzzed out vocal lines, backed my sunny harmonies. The touching element of this music is hard to put a finger on, but ill try. It's focus. The songs build and grow and stretch and might be very different by the end, but the songs never forget where they are going and what they are trying to do. The point is never lost. Take a look and listen at this smokey video.



This album became the anthem of Europe for me. Being cold and seeing beauty has a soundtrack, and this is it. For me at least. The two members of Arms and Sleepers are Max Lewis and Mizra Ramic, and when I saw them, I didn't realize that they weren't vocalists. It was in fact Ben Shepard of the opening band Uzi and Ari that did the vocals live. The live show was quite an experience. It was in a small Pub called The George Tavern, and there were maybe 25-30 people attending. It wasn't a proper venue, but they hold concerts frequently, by pushing some chairs and tables aside, and setting up equipment. My friend and I took asylum from the below freezing temperatures and sat in a booth and watched the group recreate the vibrant and haunting atmosphere found on Matador. It was so different from most of the concerts I have been to. The place was almost totally candle lit, giving it an automatic +100 for mood and tone, and the concert goers were quietly sipping on drinks and just watching. There is no doubt Arms and Sleepers makes electronic music, but they were not just sitting behind a laptop or drum machine. They recreated a lot of the instrumentation on the album. Keyboards, a xylephone of some sort, drums, melodica, and even that playing-guitar-with-bow thing. It was loud as hell too. This is the only quality video I found of the group performing live, so check it out.



There is a part two if you are interested.

Arms and sleepers sits on the fence between genres and so its hard to boil down what their music is, but I think it is safest to say ambient electronica, but there are traces of trip-hop and post-rock. I have read lots of comparisons to Boards of Canada, Portishead and The Album Leaf, but this band has something else, something intangible that evades my description. I was reading this and the author of the review seemed to have to same problem I do in summing up their enormous sound. "Calling Arms and Sleepers sophomore release, Matador, atmospheric is like calling the sky big or the ocean deep. It’s technically true, but means nothing, gives you no sense of scope. Calling it brooding gives it unnecessary baggage as it is beautiful in equal measures; still, the term would be accurate. Whatever you call it, you would, in some sense be doing it an injustice, as words are only signposts in the cloudy haze of music that is echoed in the vaguely V23 cloudy haze that adorns the cover."

I guess that's enough for now. Below are some more vids and links to the album, MySpace etc. Enjoy.

Interview:


Arms and Sleepers MySpace

Arms and Sleepers Blog

Arms and Sleepers - Matador