A Brooklyn-based writer, musician and collector of vintage synths, Daniel Lopatin is one-third of Infinity Window, one whole of Oneohtrix Point Never, and a key player in a post-noise scene who made some of the most celebrated electronic music of recent years.
His strongly narrative, synthesizer-based compositions extrapolate on the psychedelic, time-stretching promise of German kosmische music and new age ambient, doing so with a viscerality more readily associated with the post-2000 noise scene. His passion to find personal meaning in failed new age utopias and liminal science fiction environments often brings his compositions to the refracted brinks of minimalism, drone, proto-techno, noise and pop; clarifying the past through a blissful repetition of its' sonic signifiers. The sound of OPN is history filtered through modern process with an emphasis on structure and a humanness that resounds in its melodies.
The first OPN release was the 2007 cassette Betrayed In The Octagon; tracks from this and subsequent limited edition offerings – including Transmat Memories (2008) and the masterful Russian Mind (2009) were anthologised on last year's Rifts, 2xCD compilation released by iconic New York's noise label No Fun Productions and justly acclaimed by the likes of Wire, Pitchfork, Fader, Guardian UK, The Quietus, and XLR8R. Memory Vague, a DVD-R issued on Root Strata (also in '09), found Lopatin teaming his music with collaged and manipulated footage sourced entirely from YouTube; it remains arguably the best showcase for the totality of OPN's vision. His first multi-channel sound installation premiered as part of Anne Hilde Neset's (Wire) Sonic Tank exhibit at Tou Scene in Norway, which also includes work by Kim Gordon, Charlemagne Palestine, Stephen O'Malley, Oren Ambarchi and Ellen Fullman. He has collaborated on multimedia projects with artists such as Nate Boyce and Justin Craun and also runs the Upstairs CDR label, which as part of a monthly showcase at Coco 66 in Brooklyn highlights emerging talent from the experimental music scene in NYC.
OPN’s latest release Returnal comes courtesy of Peter Rehberg's Editions Mego and sees Lopatin fine tune his craft for creation of deep atmospheres and texture even further.
"Lopatin has accomplished something many musicians making so-called experimental music fail to do: open our ears to new sonic possibilities and, more importantly, force us to reconsider and rewire some of our most basic assumptions." (Wire, January 2010/311)