Oneohtrix Point Never - R Plus Seven

[Terpentintollwut]

I adore some of Lopatin's output and he is undoubtedly a very skilled guy, but I didn't like the stuff released under his Oneohtrix alias (Well I pretty much only know "Zones Without People" and a few single tracks) - Is this release different in style?

[Cryptowen]

Is this release different in style?

going off the previews i've heard & reviews i've read i would say quite signifigantly

[mcbpete]

I'd say this one is considerably different in style - something like 'Zones Without People' I guess you'd say is the typical Juno-arpy Oneohtrix sound whereas this is stylistically more about choppy samples (almost a la VHS Head at points) mixed with really General-Midi sounding instruments.

 

It's definitely not an easy listen but I'm beginning to bloody love it.

[Guest Ron Manager]

I listened to this on NPR website and became interested, having never really listened to OPN. I quite enjoyed it, and since checked out the albums collected on Rifts. I like that too, but R Plus Seven is definitely different, and so far I'm enjoying it much more than the tracks on Rifts. In a few days it's gone from being an interesting listen to a really high quality album for me. I love it. Definitely going to check out Returnal and Replica really soon, as these seem to be pretty important releases from what people here are saying.

[dr lopez]

this is a very good piece of music

[joshuatxuk]

I'd say this one is considerably different in style - something like 'Zones Without People' I guess you'd say is the typical Juno-arpy Oneohtrix sound whereas this is stylistically more about choppy samples (almost a la VHS Head at points) mixed with really General-Midi sounding instruments.

 

It's definitely not an easy listen but I'm beginning to bloody love it.

 

Yeah I think that encapsulates his discography to a certain extent. I keep returning to this album, not in the same way I would with a earworm of a song, nor because it had an immediate emotional pull to it. This doesn't have hooks nor does it have a trance-like sense of repetition or drone. That Needledrop review hit on that.

 

OPN makes, at least on the surface, abstract ambient music that seems to speak to so many listeners for completely different reasons. I think R Plus 7 just happens to have the least amount of immediate appeal of any of his albums (in the I was like "sweet, synth arpeggios" on Rifts or "sweet plunderphonics" with EccoJams) but as others are hitting on, it's drawing from bits of all of his previous work. I'm very pleased with this album.

[awepittance]

still not doing anything for me. Im wondering if ill just ever be able to see the forrest for the trees aka the good sounds over all these horribly cringe-worthy sound choices. To me the album sounds far more haphazard and un-formed than most people are giving him credit for. It's odd that this is the one where people seem to think his genius has been solidified in the scene, the is the first album of his where I'm actually questioning his entire philosophy as a musician/artist.

this is coming from someone who enjoyed Eccojams and Replica a lot.

If the album had better sound choices but wasn't immediately appealing to me I could see myself sticking it out and having it grow on me, but as it stands now the album itself is like a red flag. It's pretty much trying to filter out anyone who cant tolerate the bad and jarring sounds out of the gates (haha you don't like Yamaha portatone organ sounds with the treble turned all the way up? well fuck you,). If that's the intended concept, if he's trying to overtly turn people off by the sounds, he's succeeded greatly in my case. To me this is the album he's made that actually has the most resemblance to actual plunderphonic music (philisophically, not just in technique aka sample stealing based music). Jon Oswald's original album Plunderphonics has a similar conceptual playful vibe to it as R Plus 7 does. Where it almost feels more like a collage/art installation than a piece of music you can sit back and enjoy. I was never personally a fan of the genre of plunderphonic, People Like Us, Negativland and similar musicians to me seemed more novelty than anything I'd actually listen to, and this is squarely where Iwould place R Plus 7.

Plus if i want to hear pluderphonics with organ sounds, I'll go listen to the guys who covered that territory 10x over already, Stock, hausen & walkmen http://www.discogs.com/artist/Stock,+Hausen+%26+Walkman

[joshuatxuk]

It's odd that this is the one where people seem to think his genius has been solidified in the scene, the is the first album of his where I'm actually questioning his entire philosophy as a musician/artist.

 

It's journalistic payback imo, when bigger outlets, whether it's NPR or pitchfork or even the Grammys, realized they missed the hype boat of a certain artist, they will laude acclaim upon them if they feel they can get away with it, even if the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc isn't that good (arguably)

[ganus]

when I listened to the leak of this, with no preconceptions about the album, I listened to it at least half a dozen times. It felt exploratory, wide, and diverse, and it felt personal to me, because the different sounds were open to interpretation, and had they their own meaning & visual concept to me.

Now, with the aesthetic that they've been pushing super hard, it's ruined for me. It just feels dark and sad to me now. I can't separate that bullshit video & the pretentious write-ups from the music.

 

I always liked Replica more, but now it feel like the presentation of that album was a hell of a lot better too.

(admittedly the videos for that were awful too, but at least they weren't so disturbing)

[Guest zaphod]

still not doing anything for me. Im wondering if ill just ever be able to see the forrest for the trees aka the good sounds over all these horribly cringe-worthy sound choices. To me the album sounds far more haphazard and un-formed than most people are giving him credit for. It's odd that this is the one where people seem to think his genius has been solidified in the scene, the is the first album of his where I'm actually questioning his entire philosophy as a musician/artist.

 

this is coming from someone who enjoyed Eccojams and Replica a lot.

 

If the album had better sound choices but wasn't immediately appealing to me I could see myself sticking it out and having it grow on me, but as it stands now the album itself is like a red flag. It's pretty much trying to filter out anyone who cant tolerate the bad and jarring sounds out of the gates (haha you don't like Yamaha portatone organ sounds with the treble turned all the way up? well fuck you,). If that's the intended concept, if he's trying to overtly turn people off by the sounds, he's succeeded greatly in my case. To me this is the album he's made that actually has the most resemblance to actual plunderphonic music (philisophically, not just in technique aka sample stealing based music). Jon Oswald's original album Plunderphonics has a similar conceptual playful vibe to it as R Plus 7 does. Where it almost feels more like a collage/art installation than a piece of music you can sit back and enjoy. I was never personally a fan of the genre of plunderphonic, People Like Us, Negativland and similar musicians to me seemed more novelty than anything I'd actually listen to, and this is squarely where Iwould place R Plus 7.

 

Plus if i want to hear pluderphonics with organ sounds, I'll go listen to the guys who covered that territory 10x over already, Stock, hausen & walkmen http://www.discogs.com/artist/Stock,+Hausen+%26+Walkman

 

totally agreed. this album is tedious. i'm a big fan of russian mind and i like a few of his other tracks, but this feels like an uninspired exercise to me. i also genuinely hate the video and i'm unable to separate the music from that visual. it's such a juvenile, pretentious piece of shit. it makes me feel like the album was made by committee on /mu.

[awepittance]

I'm actually a little bit surprised that Daniel hasn't talked about the musicians that obviously influenced him besides the cheesy new age people that he ironically(or unironically) talks about in his interviews. Either he's not familiar with the whole world of pastiche/stolen sample collages or he's purposefully omitting talking about them because it makes his album R Plus possibly seem a lot less original. Either it sort of proves my suspicion that a lot of new 'experimental' people who get press have little knowledge of what other people experimenting in similar territory have come before them or for whatever reason he doesn't want to acknowledge that influence.

[Guest Zelmo Swift]

I think the choice of cringe-worthy sounds is part of the "art" of what he's doing. He's amplifying the synthetic nature of electronic music while simultaneously evoking feelings of nostalgia and alienation. I think the music videos for the tracks off this album are the perfect companion pieces.

[Guest Zelmo Swift]

Anyone know about "R Plus Seven Eccojams"? I found a couple of them floating around, and i'm assuming there are more.

[eugene]

the first one, for problem areas, is absolutely perfect imo, i think it serves as gateway for the whole album. the 2nd one is just novelty for the most part.

[joshuatxuk]

I'm actually a little bit surprised that Daniel hasn't talked about the musicians that obviously influenced him besides the cheesy new age people that he ironically(or unironically) talks about in his interviews. Either he's not familiar with the whole world of pastiche/stolen sample collages or he's purposefully omitting talking about them because it makes his album R Plus possibly seem a lot less original. Either it sort of proves my suspicion that a lot of new 'experimental' people who get press have little knowledge of what other people experimenting in similar territory have come before them or for whatever reason he doesn't want to acknowledge that influence.

 

I think he's obviously influenced by new age, 80s synth-pop, and the whole chillwave/vaporwave formula of slowed down, aesthetic driven work.

 

Perhaps he wants to distance his solo work from his work as Ford and Lopatin or not feel like he's re-hashing past sample-heavy works like this one:

 

 

I agree, his music channels the innovators of 80s and 90s plunderphonics whether he's aware of it or not.

 

A lot of these artists probably would talk their ear off more if they weren't prompted to speak to a certain agenda of music writers. I really feel that music journalism has made many artists, sincere and not so sincere, seemingly deny influences and embrace other ones. Just look how much fucking acclaim and press Girl Talk received. That still makes me pull my hair out. While he became apt at mash-ups there was a slew of artists his career was indebted to that never got the same amount of press. It feed into his own career, he was never humble about it, even started to dismiss people who called him a "DJ." To quote an REM lyric, "History is made to seem unfair."

 

Now, I don't think OPN is like Girl Talk at all, and I don't want to make any assumptions that he wants to deny certain influences or speculate on his motivations in who he collaborates with, especially recently. In terms of his musical influences this is the most informed OPN interview I've read (ih christ, here's RBMA again - we can never escape it in our discussions can we awepittance? lol). Anyway, he says "Russian Mind" was a Dopplereffekt tribute track and he's a lot more specific about his film and pop culture influences and gives a lot more answers. Lately his interviews seem far more promoted by the interviewees.

 

It's an interesting question...how many artists repeating trends by coincidence? What influences are considered more trendy and acceptable and which aren't? Are artists too afraid of being misinterpreted by citing certain influences? I've noticed that more frank and less predictable interviews tend to be given by lesser known artists. And I personally am increasingly finding myself purposely listening to niche labels and artists partly because so much of the hyped music out there is so apparently derivative or forced (though there are exceptions imo)

[Guest Zelmo Swift]

Not every artist and musician is trying to reach a wide audience and get recognition. There's a ton of visual art out there now influenced by "outsider" artists of the past who received very little recognition in their lifetime. It's not an injustice, it's just the cycle of commercial art. No one really comes out claiming to be an innovator, they just happen to be the ones to bring those ideas to a wider audience and possibly make a living from it. Dan Lopatin is a professional musician, so he has to sell himself to some degree, and referring to his influences isn't really a good way to do that. Artists have to talk about what they personally put into their work and not just who they're emulating or what past works inform what they're doing now.

[joshuatxuk]

the first one, for problem areas, is absolutely perfect imo, i think it serves as gateway for the whole album. the 2nd one is just novelty for the most part.

 

i mostly agree with this

 

Dan Lopatin is a professional musician, so he has to sell himself to some degree, and referring to his influences isn't really a good way to do that. Artists have to talk about what they personally put into their work and not just who they're emulating or what past works inform what they're doing now.

 

That makes sense, especially the tone of his recent interviews.

[awepittance]

No one really comes out claiming to be an innovator, they just happen to be the ones to bring those ideas to a wider audience and possibly make a living from it. Dan Lopatin is a professional musician, so he has to sell himself to some degree, and referring to his influences isn't really a good way to do that. Artists have to talk about what they personally put into their work and not just who they're emulating or what past works inform what they're doing now.

yes, but he does talk about certain kinds of influences, specifically the retro new age aesthetics he is so fond of. I know he's not himself saying "i'm an innovator" , but why would explaining that he is fond of different plunderphinic music that pre-dated him lower his stock in any way? I dont understand why it wouldn't be a good idea

[Alcofribas]

I give this: pretentious donkey kong country/10

[malaria]

Anyone know about "R Plus Seven Eccojams"? I found a couple of them floating around, and i'm assuming there are more.

 

If you're thinking of the preview loops from an older version of pointnever.com, there should 3 of them.

[Guest Zelmo Swift]

 

No one really comes out claiming to be an innovator, they just happen to be the ones to bring those ideas to a wider audience and possibly make a living from it. Dan Lopatin is a professional musician, so he has to sell himself to some degree, and referring to his influences isn't really a good way to do that. Artists have to talk about what they personally put into their work and not just who they're emulating or what past works inform what they're doing now.

yes, but he does talk about certain kinds of influences, specifically the retro new age aesthetics he is so fond of. I know he's not himself saying "i'm an innovator" , but why would explaining that he is fond of different plunderphinic music that pre-dated him lower his stock in any way? I dont understand why it wouldn't be a good idea

 

Like you said before, it would make his new work seem less original. If you're too referential, you're seen as a poser or copycat. If you're someone like Quentin Tarantino, then the whole point is being referential, I guess. I just think it takes the focus away from the new work to list off references and influences, and it's probably smarter marketing to give the illusion of total originality and freshness.

[Guest Zelmo Swift]

 

Anyone know about "R Plus Seven Eccojams"? I found a couple of them floating around, and i'm assuming there are more.

 

If you're thinking of the preview loops from an older version of pointnever.com, there should 3 of them.

 

Ah! Thanks. Just found the third one.

[joshuatxuk]

I give this: pretentious donkey kong country/10

 

LOL

 

That just hit me in the right spot.

 

Pitchfork review is far more enjoyable and informative than that overwrought and vulgar nugget of pretentiousness that is that Tiny Mix Tapes review.

[joshuatxuk]

Another sidenote - I love OPN and think he's a nice, intelligent guy, but the press surrounding R Plus 7 makes the interviews BOC did come off as a lot more direct and transparent in retrospect, even with all of their trademark vague reservedness.

[awepittance]

yeah i guess that's what I'm trying to pin point here, if this really all is some sort of conscious marketing campaign it kinda shows, where as an artist like BOC, minus the viral water slide stuff they didn't seem to be couching their words in any sort of strategic way to get fans to see them in a certain way in interviews.

What's interesting also is that on one hand I could see that Oneohtrixpoint never appeals to a younger generation of experimental music and ambient fans, so no point in talking about people like Jon Oswald, because an 18 year old probably wouldn't give a fuck anyways with how much other 'vaporware' there is out there. On the other hand I get the sense (and I dont think its just because I live in a bubble) that people of an older generation who've been fans of experimental and ambient music for quite some time (maybe decades) seem to not take oneohtrixpoint never very seriously at all and mostly think he hit it lucky. So the reason i say that is because if he name dropped a few people who pre-dated him or inspired him in the plunderphonic department I could see some of those jaded older people actually giving him a serious nod rather than a 'who the fuck does this kid think he is' attitude.