Oneohtrix Point Never – Scenes With Curved Objects

Scenes With Curved Objects has become (possibly) my 2nd favorite release by Oneohtrix Point Never.

Well, this brief cassette release is at least tied with the two LPs preceeding the possibly-album-of-the-year Returnal.  Yes, like those psychotropic soundscapes, it is indescribably gorgeous.  Pulsing with an alien life unique in Oneohtrix Point Never‘s oeuvre, these two live-sourced tracks foreshadow the drifting-cloud majesty of Returnal while rumbling with the some of the most concrete rhythms he (Daniel Lopatin) has yet recorded.

It begins with what sound like marimbas via a familiar-enough repeated melody, simply growing in intensity – never changing – throughout the 9 minutes of Melancholy Descriptions of Simple 3D Environments.  The draw here is how Lopatin slowly cocoons this spine, draping layer upon layer of undulating synth washes, echoed laser effects, and eventually the swelling heart of warming drone takes everything right off the ground.  Side B opens with what can only be described as The Caretaker (aka Leyland Kirby) riffing on something more triumphant than haunting:  a hollowed out and dispatched-from-the-past orchestral section valiantly tries to break through the corrosion.  Then we abruptly cut to a short murky collage which feels like bumping through a science lab in the dark before drifting directly into the triumphant heart of this piece: The Trouble With Being Born.  An oscillating fuge of an (uncharacteristically) optimistic dystopian anthem, this largest cut of the side’s 9 minutes feels like the true contemplative center of the release, a space where all conscious thought lifts up and outward.  In other words, it’s 5 minutes that will totally “expand your mind,” man.  Then a proverbial sudden-record-scratch moment happens and we cut to an Ariel Pink damaged-AM-pop sound refracted in the same manner as the previous collage, fading toward silence.

It’s quite a ride.  Short but intense.  Listen.

Tracklisting:

A Melancholy Descriptions of Simple 3D Environments

B Adagio In G Minor Screw/Piano Craft Guild Edit/The Trouble With Being Born/Let It Go

[get the mp3 edition at boomkat or try and pick up the tape via discogs..but good luck with a fair price.]

[see also on Optimistic Underground: Antony and Fennesz on Returnal 7″ and Oneohtrix Point Never and Days of Thunder]