Shortly before Daniel Lopatin’s entourage announced themselves to the historic venue of The Roundhouse in London last Friday, the Brooklyn-based composer, producer, and singer-songwriter tweeted these empathetic words to the ever-strained British public. Having recently produced his latest 8th LP, Age Of, Lopatin delved into the ethereal world of experimental electronics, incorporating tropes of chamber pop, baroque pop and dashes of folk, noise rock, and flavours of Eastern instrumentals. Marring the concept of standardised live performances, Lopatin decidedly composed a visual installation as a theatrical companion to touring his latest 8th LP, named MYRIAD - with inspiration taken from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Proving to be gratifying albeit slightly underwhelming, the cybernetic tones of Lopatin’s latest set of work ultimately enveloped the audience shipping us to another world and back.
Fusing together nine ‘fractured’ screens as the backdrop to Lopatin’s 4-piece group, it captured the amateurishly-animated futuristic scenario of another species reenacting our human race after we have been devoid of our existence. Slowly easing the crowd into these pillowed wall-of-synths were tracks from the latest LP, ‘Replica’ and ‘Age Of’, exuding slowly-tempoed piano-based refrains from the former track and bending notes courtesy of the traditional Japanese stringed Koto instrument. These were the first inklings of Lopatin’s cybernetic and ambient sonic facades ultimately shipping us on a metaphorical ‘concertscape’ into a distant yet recognisable world.
‘Still Stuff That Doesn’t Happen’ and ‘Babylon’ prolonged these Eastern-flavoured tropes within these cosmic landscapes. For the former track, the tendencies of Bon Iver and James Blake crept into the repertoire of Lopatin - utilising harmonised vocal effects on stage, exuding some bassier and drawn-out tones alongside Lopatin’s stylistically-wallowed singing. His cryptic lyricism further encompassed crumbling existences and civilisations, “Now I know why you think we’re in Babylon (help me)”. Depicting an illusory utopia within a decaying society conveyed an intriguing message of societal criticism - perhaps within the Brexit-ridden future overhanging our current nation.
As Lopatin’s set progressed, the audience became further attuned to the other instrumentation on stage, rather than focusing on the stage's backdrop. Flashing percussive beats, curtains of synthesised sounds, harmonious and brooding vocals, all burgeoned their way into the mid-section of the set. ‘Toys 2’ gorged upon palatial 80s-esque synth chords incorporating various plodding basslines simmering in the background. Transcending into the following tracks ‘The Station’ and ‘Animal’, exuding melodic harpsichord refrains tinged with Moses Sumney’s sumptuous vocal harmonies in the latter track’s cameo feature. The stark contrast between the delicate and brooding electronic instrumentals against such dark lyricism from Lopatin, “I wanna see inside the alien, I wanna feel your organs inside out”, became a disturbing pinnacle for those audience members sucked into this tumultuous world.
After the hour-and-a-quarter-long set of ethereal, ambient tones injected into the hearing canals of each attendee at The Roundhouse, Oneohtrix’s encore emerged with the inclusion of his most popular tracks to date, ‘Chrome Country’ and ‘Boring Angel’. With the former exuding cascading synth chords overlayed with soft vocals, and the latter incorporating arpeggiated synth notes sporadically overlapping in their frequencies, the audience were at last eased back down to earth. As the sacred and atmospheric tones from the on-stage entourage culminated, it soon gave way to a rousing applause from the Roundhouse crowd who’d only just awoken to a sense of reality when the house lights began to surface.
Whilst the concept and themes behind Lopatin’s MYRIAD installation projected to the North London crowd were impressive in parts, there were certain visual elements which compromised the live experience. The 3-D animation from the fractured screens seemed amateurish and I expected much more in the way of physical theatrical performances incorporated into the set. In addition to this, my eagerness for substantiated musical hooks went awry as I was left to wallow within the transcendental sonic landscapes. In spite of these hindrances, Oneohtrix Point Never collectively found their feet amongst the cosmic clouds of ambient noises flitting about with futuristic notions of extra-terrestrial species within our familiar world - an audaciously unique live experience to stage. Perhaps the 'coincidental' performance of MYRIAD was purposefully installed as an apt portrayal of the UK's future post-Brexit...
7/10
Oneohtrix Point Never's latest LP, Age Of, is out now and can be found here.
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