Rifts
A collection of OPN’s first three albums, released between 2007-2009. His earliest releases could loosely be slotted in with the hypnagogic pop and vaporwave genres, though he never exactly fit in either. Using a Roland Juno-60 and little else, Rifts charts a stark, evocative trip through a half-remembered sci-fi landscape.
“That first track especially does something for me. Makes me view past relationships in a timeless and true perspective instead of solely loathing over them.”
“This is some of the greatest music ever made…”
“My brain feels like a ping pong ball afloat, again and again being caught in streams of upward air, carried from place to place by an omnipresent wind of ambience”
“First heard this album on a long car ride. Allergies were bad so I popped a few Benadryl and it sent me on a journey. Going in I thought there was no way a 3 hour album would keep my attention but I was rooted in spot, floating in and out of consciousness under the sway of infinite arpeggiations.”
“Don't mind me, I'm just oozing into a puddle over this album”
Returnal
2010’s Returnal was an early landmark for OPN. Going beyond the churning, mechanical arpeggiations of Rifts, the album saw him crafting infinite vistas from an elegantly pared-back palette of sounds. Returnal announced to the world that OPN was something really special.
“I remember listening to ‘Nil Admirari’ for the first time. I felt like I was in some futuristic industrial operating-chamber, in which my body and mind were being brutally dismembered and reconstituted by a series of factory-like machines. The transition into track two marks the end of this short but intense process - where I finally emerge from the painful procedure as some new cyborg entity, who is jettisoned from the chamber and allowed to gaze upon the surrounding cyberpunk world with a fresh pair of post-human eyes. It is like I am experiencing this landscape for the first time again.”
“Thousands of broken electronics harmonizing and singing the song of death.”
“When I was 19 a beautiful girl named Rowan took me to the hot springs in the Jemez mountains in the winter. We did strange drugs. She played this song. She was one of the most tragic people I’ve ever met. Brilliant, yet ethereal. not of this world. I wonder what happened to her.”
“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence.”
“Saving this to listen to when I'm high.”
Replica
Replica followed Returnal with a technical exercise that yielded surprising fruit. Using only samples from ‘80s and ‘90s advertisements. It’s at times a harrowing listen, imbued with a haunting, nervy beauty.
“the main melody has been playing in my head since i became homeless”
“The pain and suffering is too much. I wish it would stop”
R Plus Seven
A fan favorite, R Plus Seven marks a turning point for OPN. This is the album where he truly made the leap from “synth music” to fully-fledged, modern electronic composition. The full field of synthetic sound is at play here, and it remains a stunning entry in his remarkable catalog.
“I used to find this album obtuse and kinda boring at first, but it's really grown on me over the years. Something about it reminds me of growing up in the Windows XP era, when computer visuals and audio were pristine but still distinctly uncanny, and there was something beautiful and almost magical about it even if it was a little inhuman and weird.”
“guys be like 'i know a spot' then take you to the r plus seven room”
“I leaned on this album pretty hard when my wife passed I guess as a kind of meditation or mental escape from the brutal reality of one world into the warm embrace of another. I am incredibly grateful that zones like this can exist.”
“the second half of still life into chrome country is so visceral that anytime I hear it I think of the first time I heard it while sprinting on a bike on a path through an open field as a thunderstorm was gathering around, the air was literally electric and I felt myself flying as the rain started to fall. I felt like I had entered some alternate future. One of the most profound auditory moments of my life, it's seared into my mind and I will never forget it.”
Garden of Delete
Following a tour where he opened for Nine Inch Nails, Oneohtrix emerged of the floating cloud of his earlier releases with gnarly EDM drops, black metal vocals and grungy aggression.
“Don't let this pitiful emulation of life that's been presented to you fool you into thinking that is all there is, because it's not, if you have not found what makes you feel alive, you have not searched long or hard enough, so cut life some slack 'cause death is always coming and you're going to experience that too, don't worry.”
“This is my favourite song that I can't play when I have company.”
Age Of
OPN flexing his medieval side, with a dash of humor amidst a feeling of digital collapse.
“Harpsichord is the best instrument ever, finally someone who gives it the light it deserves.”
“When I see the visuals, I'm guessing this is a song about the madness of debt. We'll take it, get chained to our possessions, then twist and wrestle when faced with a conscience conflict over the loss of freedom when burdened with these things. New house, new car, new piano: take your pick from the trough.”
Again
Again is, to many, the OPN album to rule them all. It feels like a culmination of what started with R Plus Seven and, in addition to containing some of his best songs, is his most sonically stunning work to date.
“God, this album captures the malaise of 21st century life. Staring down climate, resource depletion, old grudges arising, technology seeming more like a demonic panopticon than easing life. Thank you for everything, Daniel.”
“didn't know how much i liked this kind of music till i heard this album, im a changed man”
“Middle mouse click on every time stamp in the description until you have a video open starting at the beginning of each song. Hit play on them all and let it go. It goes to some bizarre places.”
“OK, this is in my top ten albums of all time and i am calling that now. I smiled, my jaw dropped, i drifted through my entire life memories, i cried when Ubiquity road came on. There is not a wasted second on this record. An absolute masterpiece. Yours sincerely, an emotional wreck called Tom”