Again followed a string of projects that put
Oneohtrix Point Never's
Daniel Lopatin at the forefront of pop culture. In particular, his collaboration with
the Weeknd widened his audience dramatically; alongside his work on
After Hours and
Dawn FM, he executive produced
the Weeknd's Super Bowl LV halftime show, during which
Abel Tesfaye dashed through a hall of mirrors. On the tenth
Oneohtrix Point Never album,
Lopatin does something similar:
Again is the final volume in a trilogy of albums in which he carries an artistic conversation with his past selves. The series began with
Garden of Delete's sullen mutations of the nu-metal, trance, and R&B that soundtracked his adolescence, then jumped to the warped reconfigurations of his childhood radio memories on
Magic Oneohtrix Point Never. Here,
Lopatin filters the music of his young adulthood -- shoegaze, post-rock, modern composition, and electronic music of all kinds -- through his perspective as an artist in his forties. As suggested by its title, old and new circle each other on
Again's recollections and reflections. This is music that sounds like it's always in the process of becoming: "Locrian Midwest" flits from prickly electronics and birdsong to flashes of pensive piano, moody vocalizations, strings, and woodwinds before finishing with a quintessentially
OPN analog synth sweep.
Lopatin traces the musical butterfly effect of how one creative choice ripples out to another with equal amounts of academic rigor and love. There's pure delight in "Plastic Antique"'s interplay of crisp electronics and saxophone; on "World Outside,"
Lopatin stills the swelling synths and strings for a moment to sing "isn't the view so amazing?" Revisiting his former self brings surprising elements into
Again's spotlight. It's one of
Oneohtrix Point Never's most guitar-heavy albums, with honest-to-goodness solos tearing across the dark fragments of "Nightmare Paint" and "Memories of Music," a hybrid of soft-rock, fusion, and prog driven by
Lee Ranaldo's tireless fretwork.
Lopatin's collaborators -- who also include composer/conductor
Robert Ames,
Ensemble NOMAD, and
Jim O'Rourke -- ensure that
Again's introspection never feels too insular. On "Krumville," a truly moving hologram of Midwestern emo,
Xiu Xiu and
Lopatin join voices to honor a departed friend. This song and several others employ artificial intelligence in an artful blend of
Lopatin's self-described "false memories" and technology's possibilities and limitations. An AI-generated loop provides the foundation for the blissful shoegaze refractions of "On an Axis," and the cyber-chatter teased out of a speech enhancement program for "The Body Trail" feels like the latest incarnation of
Garden of Delete's muttering vocaloid and
Magic Oneohtrix Point Never's surreal station ID breaks. While all of
Again is remarkably on-brand for
Oneohtrix Point Never,
Lopatin's familiar concepts are never over-familiar. As restless as the album's pieces are, they're often more clearly defined than either of the trilogy's previous volumes, as are the moods and meanings behind the sounds he revisits. Some of
OPN's most emotional and beautiful music brings
Again to an end, with "A Barely Lit Path" uniting most of the album's tangents in a poignant moment of closure. Personal and grand at the same time,
Again's mixtape of memories continues
Lopatin's enduring brilliance at moving forward by looking back. ~ Heather Phares