Everything on this record changes shape. One moment in “RayCats” Far Eastern instrumentation is being glitched beyond recognition, then suddenly it sounds like something from a relaxation tape. “Same” shimmers and twists between 20th century avant-classical, Depeche Mode at their stadium peak and pure electronic sound. “The Station” sounds like Drake or Future crooning over the bassline from a 90s grunge track, but periodically dissolves into Autechre type abstraction.
But that's Daniel Lopatin, aka Oneohtrix Point Never, all over. Since he emerged from the US electronic noise scene, he's baffled and boggled, sliding from spacious new-age ambient to grandiose (and noisy) high-art performance, working with everyone from Iggy Pop and David Byrne to FKA Twigs and ANHONI. ANHONI features here, most effectively on the torch-song-from-the-ninth-dimension “Still Stuff That Doesn't Happen”, as does James Blake (as keyboardist), art percussionist Eli Keszler, singer/cellist and Blood Orange collaborator Kelsey Lu among others.
All of them audibly contribute to the variety of the record, but this is Lopatin's vision – and it's a vastly ambitious one, inhuman in the most intriguing way, zooming from micro detail to galactic scope. Its shapeshifting nature makes it a record for our times: for the terrifying era of “post-truth”, of identities being melted into overwhelming big data flows, of untrustworthy images. It's not an obviously comforting listen – but even as it slides from digital gleam to distressing noise, melody to glitch, there is something utterly compelling about its refleciton of our weird, wired world.
