MAGIC ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER

Daniel Lopatin's ninth album under the OPN moniker feels like a career retrospective. He's been making thoughtful, experimental, progressive electronic music for 15 years, and there are elements of the sounds he's toyed around with throughout the album. Intended to feel like flipping through radio stations, the album constantly shifts styles with layers upon layers of melodies and timbres to dissect; you never know what the next bend in the road will lead to. Songs like "Long Road Home" and "Bow Ecco" reflect the baroque pop embellishments of Age Of, "Imago" hearkens back to the lush sampling in Replica; R Plus Seven's plastic, blocky vibes are prevalent in "The Whether Channel"; Garden of Delete's heavier sound with the hard-hitting "I Don't Love Me Anymore", plus a guitar solo in "Lost But Never Alone". As usual, there are plenty of throwbacks to his early spacey ambient albums where the Juno-60 prevailed. In fact I think there's a synth that sounds like it in "Wave Idea". The addition of guest vocalists is hit-or-miss, though. Sometimes it blends in nicely, like on "Long Road Home", but sometimes there's a song that seems best without it. The highlight of this, though, has to be ARCA's spoken word performance on "Shifting." To flesh out the concept more, the four Cross Talk interludes sample radio recordings and jingles that transition into songs semi-flawlessly. Overall, it's a decent album from Oneohtrix that messes with your emotions and makes you reminisce to the days of those long car rides with nothing to do but close your eyes and let the radio play.