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May 29, 2018It's the wealth of exquisitely baroque moments, exploring history as a pliable, multi-dimensional rift, that makes Age Of Lopatin's most ambitious album yet. There is exceptional sonic depth, and those who were confounded by his dive into industrial alternative on Garden of Delete will notice a bewildering continuity.
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May 30, 2018The result is a remarkably accessible, yet still resolutely avant-garde work, with Lopatin taking various musical forms--cough-syrupy R&B jams, country ballads, baroque chamber pop--and wresting unexpected nuances out of them, the same way he does that harpsichord.
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MixmagJul 6, 2018Textures plough and pound throughout the album, revealing yet another new, unclassifiable side of OPN's musical brain as he brings more disparate sounds to the fore. [Jun 2018, p.115]
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Jun 12, 2018While it undoubtedly packs in a humongous swath of influences and touchstones from today’s pop culture, the overall piece created is completely unique, unreplicable and ultimately undescribable.
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Jun 4, 2018It's not difficult to call an album as multi-layered and fascinating as Age Of a landmark work.
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Jun 1, 2018The strangest and most ambitious album yet by the electronic composer and producer born Daniel Lopatin. For all its references to the past, Age Of is a distinctly 21st-century collage. ... When the Baroque arpeggios that close “The Station” enter a lockstep reminiscent of his synth-drone score for the 2017 thriller Good Time, for instance--it’s a musical thrill that renders questions about historical fidelity irrelevant.
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Dec 14, 2018All told, Oneohtrix Point Never’s latest album is good, but it’s also his worst ‘proper’ album since his critical breakthrough. In attempting (but not fully committing to) his most accessible release, Age Of doesn’t feel like it’ll go down well with any particular audience.
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Jun 1, 2018Through his distortion of smooth adult contemporary ballads, Lopatin proves that in the right hands, often-ridiculed elements of culture can be crafted into something transcendent.
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The WireJul 13, 2018Age Of is arguably Lopatin’s best album to date. He achieves exactly what he sets out to. [Jul 2018, p.55]
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Jun 11, 2018The tracks’ detailed arrangements are almost symphonic at places, but no matter how elaborate and eccentric they get, listeners are consistently guided by catchy ornamental melodies with which the album is replete. It’s this powerful juxtaposition that makes Age Of so compelling as an album.
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Jun 11, 2018Age Of is both a sonic treat, and potentially a precursor to how the future of pop music may sound. Fortunately, we need not imagine, because Daniel Lopatin is already there.
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Jun 7, 2018Age of sees Daniel Lopatin, like the AIs of his album, escape his digital restraints and make his most human record to date.
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Jun 5, 2018Age Of is an excellent and frequently rewarding album; where one might expect a musical cul-de-sac, there is a 180-degree turn that somehow always feels appropriate, a testament to two years of songcraft that have clearly paid dividends.
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Jun 4, 2018Expectations are subverted, as when the opulence of the harpsichord is manipulated beyond recognition or a piercing shout infiltrates a rhythm. Since every composition holds this tension within its structure, it feels like an aesthetic choice rather than a gimmick. The more time you spend with Age Of, the more Lopatin’s instrumentations reveal depth.
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Jun 4, 2018Age Of is a maddening, compelling, even thrilling record that feels like a conclusive summation of everything the Oneohtrix Point Never project has been (or even hinted at) to date.
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May 30, 2018Age Of is the sound of an internet addict sifting through the digital ruins, part of a culture jamming legacy for future generations, should they exist.
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MojoMay 29, 2018Frequently overwhelming yet unconventionally comforting, there's a bebop-style envelope-pushing at work. [Jul 2018, p.95]
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Q MagazineMay 29, 2018By the end, Lopatin has captured the uneasy calm of a mind unhinged by information overload. [Jul 2018, p.115]
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Jun 4, 2018It is a profoundly lonely place, this album, and it would be unbearably cynical were it not for the moments of sublimity rustling through its sneers.
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Jun 8, 2018Age Of reflects the odd, toxic, backward-looking culture we've created online back at us, encapsulating both the fleeting serenity and unrelenting terror contained within.
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Jul 3, 2018Despite the collaborative nature of the album's creative process, Lopatin has built a wall between him and his audience like never before, at a time when a bridge would probably be a more welcome development.
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Jun 4, 2018Because the album can’t be one complete thing, Age Of is its own archenemy; its own princess stranded in a high castle; its own climb up the Holy Mountain. A radical incompleteness haunts it.
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UncutMay 29, 2018There's an inherent creepiness in his frequently audacious work that makes it hard to connect with on an emotional level. [Jul 2018, p.33]
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May 29, 2018Daniel Lopatin’s eighth album as Oneohtrix Point Never finds him splitting the difference between the synth-based abstraction of his previous albums and a more visceral, abrasive style. While neither of these are bad templates to work from per se, the result is an album that doesn’t know what it wants to be.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 30 out of 36
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Mixed: 6 out of 36
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Negative: 0 out of 36
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Jun 5, 2018