As depicted by the cover-artwork, Daniel Lopatin’s first Warp-record can be compared to a trip to a gallery. This one exhibits huge canvases of uni-colored works hung right next to Pollock’s action-paintings. They’re made audible through plain layers of ambient, only to quickly be replaced and thwarted by fidgety piano-arpeggios. Sacral installations and abstract sculptures are taking turns – because on »R Plus Seven«, simulations of choir- and organ-sounds are likely to be confronted with a dubstep-bass. Still, dubstep-elements are pretty rare when it comes to the preset-selection; according to the artist, the whole set is to be labeled as rather »spiritual« and mostly to be used in films. To me, the coldish sound-sculptures on this record are highly influenced by visual arts and an intellectual approach to sounds. Post-modern concepts are clearly more important than recognizability or even catchiness. Anyone looking for conventional tracks or actual beats will search in vain. When there’s a rhythmic structure at last, the loops are cut awry so that they become jolty, turning from an actual loop to an elliptic spiral. Taking all these observations into account, it’s not only remarkable but somewhat reassuring that this kind of music is still being received within a pop-cultural context.
Scott Gordon
Metals
Diagonal