Barbican, London
Backed by a talented band, electronic visionary Daniel Lopatin creates a surrealist vision of machine vying with man
The big picture, by its nature, is tricky to grasp. In an age of melting ice caps and deadly heatwaves, surprisingly few musicians have tackled the calamity awaiting us. But through his increasingly unclassifiable albums, American electronic musician Daniel Lopatin – AKA Oneohtrix Point Never – has been edging towards the precipice for a closer look. His latest, Age Of, is a dizzying synthesis of the concepts he has been toying with since his 2013 album R Plus Seven: high-definition computer music, abstract in shape yet piercingly emotional. Age Of, according to Lopatin, is imagined as the sentimental musings of some advanced artificial intelligence looking back on the follies of humanity. The album evolved from a “concertscape” called Myriad, which Lopatin brings to London on a sticky summer night.
The multimedia performance is set against a backdrop of Nate Boyce’s grotesque CGI visuals and hanging sculptures, which loom like aborted HR Giger monsters. Lopatin is flanked by pianist Kelly Moran, drummer and percussionist Eli Keszler, and Aaron David Ross, who plays an array of cinematic synths and special effects They pull off a jaw-dropping performance: a faithful yet fluid rendition of an album that, on record, seems laden with computer-assisted compositional quirks no human could master.
Related: Oneohtrix Point Never: Age Of review – a subversion of expectations
Continue reading...by Chal Ravens via Electronic music | The Guardian
No comments:
Post a Comment