Oneohtrix Point Never : Tranquilizer

Discovering the musical world of Daniel Lopatin known as Oneohtrix Point Never was a revelation. Much like stumbling across Boards of Canada, you feel like you’re coming across something completely singular and unique. There was nothing quite like that music before it. There were bits and pieces of 80s new age and drone music -as well as private press releases from the 70s and 80s- but Lopatin filtered all of this through 80s pop radio, commercial jingles, an old keyboard he got from his dad, and a beat up sampler.

And lots of weed.

What came out of all of that was the first phase of OPN. Albums like Betrayed In The Octagon, Russian Mind, Zones Without People and Returnal. Electronic albums that were about slowly moving through existence; the past catching up with the present and conspiring about the future. Wonky synths emulating brain fog, and samplers deconstructing reality, regurgitated out of a computer for adventures in alternate realities.

With Replica OPN took a turn into new sounds, dealing heavily in sampling. Glitchy tracks that sounded like conversations skipping like a phonograph needle, all the while layered in sepia-toned electronics. With each Oneohtrix Point Never record after that there were gradual shifts and evolutions as Lopatin cleaned up the work into a shiny, studio-pieced machine. Score work interspersed between these sonic shifts, Lopatin and OPN grew even more alien and indecipherable. A music code with no means of cracking it.

We now have Tranquilizer, which feels like nostalgia thru the looking glass. A masterpiece of revisiting the past, admiring what came before, and the bittersweet pull of moving on. It’s the best Oneohtrix Point Never album in a decade.

Tranquilizer feels like sifting through the radio dial on a long, lonely car ride through the night. Searching in static for a voice to keep you company on the journey. The music here comes in snippets and pieces, as if trying to find a solid idea to run with. Much like OPN’s excellent 2020 release Magic Oneohtrix Point Never, an album inspired by a Boston radio station Lopatin grew up hearing. With Tranquilizer, things start with some commercial sample CDs Lopatin found on the Internet Archive. He marked them for future use but then they vanished. A year or two later they turned back up, which gave Lopatin the idea of the impermanence of everything. In his words, “I wanted to capture the emotional register of an era where everything is archived but perpetually slipping away.”

Things feel more subtle on this record; mysterious and amorphous. Tracks like “Bumpy” and “Modern Lust” take their time getting into your brain. Looping refrains give it all a hypnotic feel. You get a similar feel to classic OPN, but without the drone. “Lifeworld” is part jungle rhythms and PBS’ ‘Nova’ rolled into one. “Fear of Symmetry” is built on a looping piano line and Vangelis-like string patches. Sounds build to crescendos, simmering to distant melodies.

One of the best tracks here -as well as one of OPN’s best songs period- is the beautiful “Cherry Blue”. It wavers nearly out of time for 4 minutes, bringing a bittersweet and melancholy mood that pulls you in instantly. Much like R Plus Seven‘s “Chrome County”, it sits in its own space. Where much of OPN’s work is ghost-like, as if remembering bits of dreams, “Cherry Blue” is tangible and visceral in its emotional heft.

From the digital wash of “D.I.S.” to the glitchy beauty of “Storm Show” to the 80s digital splash of “Rodl Glide”, OPN builds sonic worlds to get lost in. Everything comes to a close on “Waterfalls”, a song glistening in nostalgic tones and chromed-out bliss.

Each time Oneohtrix Point Never releases an album it feels like it could be the last. Thankfully Daniel Lopatin finds new musical avenues to explore, and in the case of Tranquilizer, it seems a journey into the past has given us one of OPN’s best albums.