R Plus Seven

Background and recording

Following the synthesizer-heavy sound of early Oneohtrix Point Never albums and the sample based techniques of Replica (2011), the recording of R Plus Seven saw Lopatin work extensively with MIDI presets and software patches. It is the first Oneohtrix Point Never record not to feature Lopatin's signature Roland Juno-60 synthesizer. Lopatin would later describe it as a "calm" record influenced by his experience of "domestic bliss." He also confessed to being influenced by the ideas of object-oriented ontology. Discussing his approach, Lopatin explained

I've made vertically dense music in the past, and I more or less decided to do a record where I would flip that axis over this way [horizontally] and just excavate. So now I have a plane—a horizontal plane with very particular musical objects, in almost like a tableaux format. The objects themselves are very simple, but what they are doing, for me anyway, has an opportunity to be very complex.

The album draws on the synthetic sounds of MIDI presets, as well as spoken word script samples. Regarding the sonic palette, Lopatin opined "I like to be manipulated by the sounds I'm using, and then struggle to find some sort of commonality with those things [...] when I play a pipe organ or have this like Hollywood choir at my disposal, it's going to tap into some kind of cliché matrix of ideas in my mind, and allow me to wrestle with it."

The cover art is a still taken from the 1982 film Le ravissement de Frank N. Stein, by Swiss animator Georges Schwizgebel. The album title is a reference to the French procedural writing technique Oulipo, which can involve the "N+7" technique of replacing any noun with the seventh one to follow it in the dictionary.

Composition

R Plus Seven includes sounds of early samplers and clear-sounding presets from the 1980s most notable for use in the early and raw age of digital audio workstations, bumpers for local PBS series and music played in instructional videos. Pitchfork Media's Mark Richardson said that the album plays with the listener's unconscious by using these very cold textures to make something strange, heavenly and full of feeling. He compared R Plus Seven to Far Side Virtual by James Ferraro, a record that also used early, clear-sounding digital sounds to stress its link to mindless, non-stop commerce. However, unlike Ferraro's album, where "you never quite knew where he was coming from, which made the listening experience fraught with ambiguity and anxiety", Lopatin "wants his music to do things that music is traditionally known to do: change, develop, use melody to convey feelings, build tension and then release it." Andy Battaglia of Rolling Stone described the album as "holy music, even if wholly weird," and compared it to the works of composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich in terms of rhythm and repetition. The Skinny wrote that every song is significantly different in structure, with some songs having the vibe of cosmic jazz music.

According to David Wolfson of Beat per Minute, unlike past Oneohtrix Point Never records, R Plus Seven explores themes of morphogenesis, procedural composition and cryogenics. Describing the song "Zebra," Wolfson stated, "The lively synth progression in the first part of the song is an exercise in procedural composition, the claustrophobic ambient space of the second part a representation of cryogenics, and the way the song progresses from section to section, with parts building up before splintering off into something completely new, is entirely morphogenetic in form." Tracks like “Americans” and “Inside World” have been described as exploring differences between the Real and the virtual representation of real, containing "then-exotic turn-of-the-80s" sounds that could've been made with a Fairlight CMI, as well as other delicate digital sounds, that make a feeling of a pixilated depiction of a jungle or beach. Richardson called this album "Fifth World Music", an allusion to Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics by Jon Hassell and Brian Eno.

Visual collaborations

Between announcement and the eventual release of R Plus Seven, Oneohtrix collaborated with a number of artists on visual accompaniments to tracks and updates on his Web site pointnever.com. The first being an excerpt of "Still Life," released with a video by Nate Boyce, a frequent collaborator on the Oneohtrix Point Never live show. A video for "Problem Areas," by the animator and digital artist Takeshi Murata, followed at the beginning of August alongside an interactive version at pointnever.com. The second update to the site came from Jacob Ciocci alongside the song "Zebra" at the beginning of September with a final video prior to the release directed by Jon Rafman for the song "Still Life". Pitchfork described the video in an article dated September 25, 2013 as follows:

A final video for the OPN track "Boring Angel," which was directed by John Michael Boling appearing in December 2013.

Critical reception

R Plus Seven received widespread acclaim from critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from critics, the album received an average score of 81, based on 30 reviews. On the album, Heather Phares of AllMusic wrote: "For the most part, the album showcases Oneohtrix Point Never's restlessness and ambition in flattering ways; if it's equal parts mystifying and beautiful, it's also a puzzle well worth trying to figure out." Sasha Geffen of Consequence of Sound stated: "R Plus Seven might be the first album to crystallize the simultaneous joy and terror inherent in a life of constant connection and constant surveillance" Mark Richardson of Pitchfork awarded the album with "best new music" tag and wrote: "R Plus Seven doesn’t have quite the disembodied weirdness of Replica, but it’s no less accomplished, another intriguing chapter from an artist whose work remains alive with possibility."

Marty Sartini Garner of Filter also compared the album to the artist's previous work: "R Plus Seven isn’t the masterpiece of technical error that its predecessor was; it’s the dissection of a heart." Andy Beta of Spin wrote: "With his first album for Warp, OPN proves his mettle amid labelmates like Aphex Twin and Flying Lotus." Bram E. Gieben of The Skinny stated: "A visionary artist at the height of his powers, this is in many ways his most accessible and uplifting work so far," while also adding that "each track contains distinct movements, bearing out the occasional comparisons made between Lopatin's work and classical composition." Nevertheless, Louis Pattison of NME was mixed in his assessment of the record: "There are a few moments of elegant sensuality--like the tumbling, androgynous voices of 'He She'--but by and large it's like one of Jeff Koons' uber-kitsch sculptures: gleaming, opulent, but kinda hard to love."

Accolades

R Plus Seven was on several year-end lists by critics, topping Tiny Mix Tapes' year-end list and being ranked number 43 on the annual poll Pazz & Jop by The Village Voice.

Track listing

All music composed by Daniel Lopatin.

Personnel

R Plus Seven personnel, as adapted from AllMusic.