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Oneohtrix Point Never - R Plus Seven


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I had been planning to wait until the CD arrived from Bleep but then my mind collapsed into Willpowertrix Point Never.

 

Also Along is lovely as.

I'm glad Along has finally been mentioned, that's been the standout track to me. The pacing and space between notes is so elegant it's almost balletic (maybe it would be safer to call it lush).

 

I've started to think that this album is so fucking good that it could end up being a turning point album like Never Mind The Bollocks, Smells Like Teen Spirit, Enter The 36 Chambers i.e. where everything is different afterwards. Maybe that's going to far. Has there been any music press/blog reaction to this yet?

 

Sometimes I listen to music through an Apple TV box streaming from my computer and there's this default screen saver that always comes up. It used to annoy me because I couldn't change the cascading tiles of National Geographic-like stock photographs of lions, savannas and waterfalls. I really like it now though because R Plus Seven compliments it perfectly.

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Guest jasondonervan

 

Really good interview. Love that his favourite film is La Haine:

 

Since cinema has clearly had such a profound influence on Lopatin’s output over the years, I felt like concluding by finding out his favourite VHS movie. “It would be La Haine, which translates as The Hate. I wore it down, I just got a copy I brought up from my childhood home and I put it on my shelf because I realized that that VHS was played more than any other that I ever owned, so I thought “fuck this means something, I should probably not just throw it in a musty box.” It’s next to Johnny Suede, the old Tom DeCillo film, and next to that is probably Terminator and Terminator 2 back to back. The Hate is my all time favourite VHS tape.”

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Hearing or reading his thoughts on his own music consistently confuses me, it's like I know all of the words he uses but it's still a different language. Likewise, I love this album but have no clue how to articulate why. Good interview though, I don't think I've ever been closer to understanding him than when he said "I'm trying to give a candid account of what I really, actually think that music sounds like". Even if I can't really explain that, I feel it, lol.

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nice interview. i found particularly insightful the bit about trying to recreate the true phenomenology of listening to music, complete with environmental sounds, dips in concentration, wandering thoughts, etc. one of the striking things about the album is the frequent transitions from the bright, energetic, sort of cheesy bits to the sparse, spacious, droney bits, and back again. these seem like incongruous elements, but the transitions work very smoothly and make the album much more interesting, for me at least. similarly, there are a lot of parts with strange layering of sounds, little snippets of bird song, and so on. that bit in the interview sheds some light on what his intentions may have been with these aspects of the record (other, of course, than that they sound nice)

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Digging "Zebra" a lot. For a few bars throughout almost like a Gold Panda track without a 4/4 beat. I really respect OPN's general avoidance of "beat" percussion. I think it'd be tempting for many producers.

 

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I'm surprised at how satirically he intended the album. I personally felt like this album was more about exploring sounds that we reject as cheesy.

I think it works better this way imo. In the same way a weird Tim and Eric sketch that's not necessarily laugh out loud funny is enjoyable and has a pleasant or strange atmosphere. Its interesting because i feel like my initial reaction to the album was probably more in line with his thinking than most of the listeners here who seemed to 100% fully embrace the cheesy sounds and not find them overtly funny.

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Well in my case, since I've been playing computer games since I was a lil' kid and making music with shitty general midi synthesizers for the past 8 years I never really found the sounds necessarily cheesy to begin with, so I suppose the sounds get filtered through everyone's ears differently.

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the 'cheesiness' or timbre of the sounds used (of what i've heard) is not offensive, it's the rigidity of the sound patterns that makes it difficult to engage with. parts of the zebra track feel one-dimensional, where the samples repeat at various pitches and the sequences. it sounds like chintzy steve reich music, and very rigid. he lost me with replica, i feel like philip jeck has been making this sort of repetitious music for years.

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I get that it could be said there is a 'cheesy' aspect in R Plus Seven. Particularly in the use of out-of-fashion synths and sample libraries of that are somewhat convincing replicas of acoustic instruments and vocal choirs... but then have shonky aspects like short attack and release envelopes that wouldn't happen in real acoustic spaces. It's a lot like the 'uncanny-valley' effect of CGI animation, if something is rendered in a 98% convincing way, it's that final 2% of unnaturalness that you most notice and gives it an eerie quality. Like Tom Hanks' pupils always being out of alignment in The Polar Express.

 

But in total contrast to this is how silky the album is mixed, mastered and engineered, in that regard it sounds anything but cheap and shonky. I assume this is Daniel Lopatin taking full advantage of having access to a professional studio and recording engineer. Also in contrast to the cheesy aspects of the sound design is how emotive the actual harmonic compositions are.

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Guest murphythecat8

I can't stop loving this album.

Its infectious. The more I listen the more and more I love it and want to listen again. Loving moments from just about every track. There aren't really any tracks I dislike. Am finding myself putting on Chrome country a lot and then looping back to the start of the album and listening to it proper. Also Along is lovely as. The whole thing is lovely and baffling and beautiful and wonderful.

(Also, a preemptive 'fuck you' to anyone that calls this album overrated after it receives its out if proportion praise.)

exactly my feeling!

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Digging "Zebra" a lot. For a few bars throughout almost like a Gold Panda track without a 4/4 beat. I really respect OPN's general avoidance of "beat" percussion. I think it'd be tempting for many producers.

 

 

i've never heard of this guy but I like this alot. Reminds me of Christian Fennesz abit

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Also in contrast to the cheesy aspects of the sound design is how emotive the actual harmonic compositions are.

 

Yeah, that's what I though he was proving with this album. Not that it was supposed to be satirical, but that any sounds can be really effective in the right hands.

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Guest bitroast

I get the impression the .ra Chrome Country was in response to the album leaking in 'lazy' m4a format ? (But I may totally be wrong. It may just be a stab at 90s Internet along with the rest of the website atm..)

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Guest jasondonervan

I'm debating popping up to Leeds in a few weeks to see him again. It's an excuse for a couple of days away as well, but I'm thinking he's probably got a new set lined up by now which should feature plenty of new album business.

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