Age Of

The 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.

Textures 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]

While 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.

It's not difficult to call an album as multi-layered and fascinating as Age Of a landmark work.

The 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.

All 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.

Through 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.

Age Of is arguably Lopatin’s best album to date. He achieves exactly what he sets out to. [Jul 2018, p.55]

The 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.

Age 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.

Age of sees Daniel Lopatin, like the AIs of his album, escape his digital restraints and make his most human record to date.

Age 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.

Expectations 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.

Age 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.

Age 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.

Frequently overwhelming yet unconventionally comforting, there's a bebop-style envelope-pushing at work. [Jul 2018, p.95]

By the end, Lopatin has captured the uneasy calm of a mind unhinged by information overload. [Jul 2018, p.115]

It 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.

Age 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.