Oneohtrix Point Never - Again

  On 9/30/2023 at 6:02 PM, beerwolf said:

True story Sir Alcofribas, I don't think I ever disagreed with anything you say. But I think this is it. This is the time. However by my own admission I can prematurly start fizzing at the gills with excitement over somethings that in the long run don't pan out as expected. That can be down to my mood when I sit and listen. And I'm in a 8.5/10 mood today. So I could put on a Taylor Swift album and started punching the sky with Devil Horns!!! 

Flol 

this is a pretty good track record. i permit thee to fly free, enjoy this music, go wild, soar.

  On 9/29/2023 at 12:06 AM, Alcofribas said:

waiting for @dr lopez to chime in before i form my opinion 

you beat me by one post

  On 9/30/2023 at 6:25 PM, dr lopez said:

you beat me by one post

lol 

Thinking this is his best since R plus 7

And look on the bright side at the Royal Festival Hall I won't have to put up with a fucking gazzillion goons who decide to leave 10 minutes after the main set starts, 5 gazillion goons who leave halfway through, and 20 gazillion goons who turn up halfway through. Pushing right in front of my face.

A couple listens over the weekend and I’d agree with the comments about it being his best since R+7. It’s a bit of a slow start but once you understand what he’s going for it digests a lot better. I can see why he recommends listening to it 2x in a row. Highlights for me:

World Outside - fuck yes

Locrian Midwest - especially the last 15 seconds, he’s got an amazing ability to create small moments of unique bliss.

The last four tracks overall. Amazing run of tunes. I think On an Axis is one of the best tunes I’ve ever heard from him, I don’t even know how to classify it. 
 

A Barely Lit Path is just next level, probably my track of the year.

Gave it a listen yesterday, not sure what to think yet, feel basically the same as @beerwolf so far: it's a jumbled mess, it all blended together in an overwhelming way, seems genuinely pretty weird, need to listen a few more times to "get" it.

That's basically how I felt about Replica and R+7 when I first listened to those so maybe I'll like this one more with future listens but so far I didn't have strong feelings for it one way or the other. Liked it more than the last two tho.

Memories Of Music is my fav track at the moment, that ending FFS…

https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/oneohtrix-point-never-again/

This feels like his most accessible album. I like it.

really having trouble forming an opinion on this for some reason, might need more time. I LOVE the proggy jazz-rock influences but it overall feels very random and blurry to me. Nothing has quite caught on or been memorable to me sound-wise to me, in the same way Age Of or Magic OPN caught me. Maybe I just like the more pop bent melodies. Sometimes it takes me a while to like certain music, I've always had a hard time w/ OPN's but something keeps me coming back.

Music hasn't just been handed a ton of new parameters...

But it's still a massively enjoyable hour, a mashup of the better elements from his last 2-3 records with some old school 0pn arpeggio work. The classical strings stuff recall Ferraro's Far Side Virtual stuff. Its already a bit of a cliche to say its a vaporwave best of but it does feel like that. As much as I love him pushing the envelope, its sometimes just nice to hear him doing what he does best

I just listened to it and in fact I liked it a lot, tho it sounds more conceptual, sound exploration rather than musical, but, unlike his other albums, this actually has SOVL, likes in his ambient era. But still the voice he uses is absolute shit, but it's not my art so I'm nobody to judge that. Great album indeed.

I liked it more than Tim Hecker's No Highs—that album sounds tired.

First two tracks are melting my face off.  Sound design on this mofo is off the charts.

Final verdict after giving it about 8 listens is that I think this album is a massive grower. At first I thought I wasnt going to like it as much because everything seemed to flow together. After a while you start picking up patterns throughout the tracks and it becomes better to follow. I still don't know if I prefer this over Age of.. and Magic because I really like the more accesible sound of those albums but it has kept me coming back for more. A lot of people were comparing this to R+7 since it gets sampled on this thing a couple of times. I'm glad it doesn't sound like R+7 2.0 because I never fully got into that album. This one is clicking with me way more! Classic OPN!

Maybe the album could've used a better overall theme because everything does sound a bit put together right now but that's fine. 8/10!

3 listens so far and i enjoy it alot, great album once again

last track is so good

I wish I could do such amazing "spectulative autobiographies" or whatever. I'm obsessed with this album right now.

Nightmare Paint sounds like an acoustic take on Garden of Delete "hypergrunge" which makes it even more melancholic. Quite an emo album in my opinion, but nothing wrong with this haha. OPN is the king.

i'm with a few of y'all here in thinking i'm just never gonna vibe with any of his stuff. it's always competent and different, but always misses me. good for y'all it does work for, but idk about it. lots of soap opera vibes in here. i couldn't finish the album tho, got really bored with Body Trail, even the good bits of it and the others. gave up after Memories of Music. it's like he tries to hide from just embracing things? maybe that tension is the purpose? or maybe it's purposeful obfuscation for the sake of being a little weird? i doubt that but that's the vibes i get from it.

it feels like he's super tryharding to just put in every different sound and texture and vibe and force them to work with each other. and he's talented enough to make them all 'work' but overall songs just end up feeling like pastiches. an IDM version of Beck or some mashup DJ. 

him and Actress seem to be playing in similar worlds but Actress is coming from other places and/or going other places. i like more of those. 0PN ain't anywhere i've got interest in being, yet again.

I find this a lot more interesting than some other new albums I've checked out lately. He has a more adventurous sense of harmony and texturing than what many seem to be settling for at the moment (in the more well known electronic realm.) It is a bit scattershot, it's true, but I think I could get used to that - it feels like something you could grow into rather bored of.

Liking this one a bit more the more I listen. Memories of music still gives me a lot of brain tingles so I keep going back to it, but the rest is good too. I think I have a hard time with it on headphones due to how it's mixed.

So, are the strings / orchestral bits in the first track samples?  

  On 10/8/2023 at 10:44 AM, kichiguy said:

So, are the strings / orchestral bits in the first track samples?  

nah, it's a live orchestra. the "nomad ensemble" to be precise. 

source: liner notes

Again is OPN's Campfire Headphase.

Change my mind.

OPN AMA FYI.