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If I had had the support, the desire, the courage, the balls, the money, and the right musical education, I would have liked to produce music in life. So far, that hasn't been the case. Oh well. The fact is, to overcome this "musical deficit," this urge to create that occasionally grips me and pulls me down, I downloaded a silly little program, a virtual console, nothing major. Yes, I've also tried serious programs, but
I don't even know where to start, so fuck it. So I open that console, take two pieces, create small loops and put them together. Sometimes it's enough for me to loop just one piece and equalize it to my liking. If I'm particularly inspired, on the other hand, I overlap a third piece, or take a pre-made drumming, and throw it on top. Then I play with those little effects present and spend some time like that. The result invariably sucks, but in the meantime, I've had fun, and that's something.
"Why should we care?" you may ask. Here's the reason: I "met" this Daniel Lopatin under his pseudonym "Chuck Person". Look up "Chuck Person's Eccojam" on YouTube and click on the third result that appears (A3 Daniel Lopatin). Or listen to the entire album directly, if you can (Eccojams vol.1). The first piece by Lopatin that I listened to was indeed A3, and I remember a smile, or perhaps more of a smirk, spreading across my face. Then I laughed hysterically. What do they call this stuff? Vaporwave! hahaha! good! there's hope even for me - I thought - if to become famous all you really need to do is loop an old R&B track or whatever, slow it down, slather 1 kg of echo (like a vagina), reverb, phaser, and God knows what else, and run it for about six minutes. These types of experiments date back to the dawn of electronic music. Sure, I acknowledge the Eccojams for being at least catchy, but let's be honest and call things as they are; they're a big joke. In theory, it's supposedly a post-modern intellectual operation whose intent I frankly haven't yet understood, but in practice, it's a decidedly lazy way to produce music.
Yet good old Lopatin managed to enter the Warp Records stable - read: I know him precisely for this reason - so he can't be that bad, right? I listen to Replica, year Domini 2011. It's getting better. I recognize an ambient framework at least interesting and a MUCH more creative and stratified use of loops. In general, a decidedly mature compositional ability. Replica is, in short, an excellent record, which I recommend to anyone. So I approach R Plus Seven (skipping the rest) with a certain amount of excitement. let's even say Hype, to be trendy. It's Lopatin's first record for a major label, talked about extensively, and is referred to as a "watershed" of modern electronics. So I was preparing to drool. Did I drool? yes, indeed, I drooled.
R Plus Seven, although perhaps not a masterpiece across the board, presents some of the most exciting soundscapes I've heard in a long time. Just the initial "Boring Angel" is enough to properly sterilize your ears. A ride of "basic" or "retro" synths, that always cater to the author's taste, run in staccato from one headphone to the other. It's minimalism, a Reich or a Glass as they would sound if processed by a sampler intent on continuously deconstructing and reconstructing every single fragment. What strikes about this record, besides the "oddity" of the samples used, antique pieces and synthetic choirs, is precisely the compositional style used. Whether it is more "melodically airy" pieces (read - all jumbled) or others more "beat-oriented" (and with a "minimalistic" structure) although there is practically NEVER a beat in the background accompanying any track (except for the last one and - perhaps - the penultimate) the compositional inspiration is always something sensational, between continuous and unexpected deconstructions, angelic choirs, loops taken who knows where, and a marked use of "ambient" keyboards, which I admit may not please everyone, but with which I practically have a field day.
A programmatic manifesto of what has been said could be "Americans", a sensational track that in its continuous opening and closing represents a bit of the "sum" of Lopatin's poetics. But it is really difficult to cite a particular piece that didn't strike me since practically all the tracks, from the mastering, to the creative use of instruments to the (few) pitched voices, to the general atmosphere that results from it, form a truly unified overall picture, and from this point of view indeed conceptual. I could dwell on how "Cryo" takes me back to Silent Hill (!) or on how "Along" is one of the most interesting ambient tracks I have heard in a long time, how "Still Life" and "Chrome Country" (of clear trap inspiration) are more creative on their own than three-quarters of the modern "chill" catalog scannable on YouTube, and without even bothering to fit into the genre.
I could really talk individually about each track, but maybe not. So let's draw conclusions: is R Plus Seven a watershed? does it really advance the electronic discourse? damn no. What Lopatin really succeeded in, in my humble opinion, is implementing order in disorder (or vice versa). Chaos and order are equivalent in his pieces to the point of becoming indistinguishable, and it is worth noting in this regard, with how much ease - and how often - he transitions from sustained and "full" moments to a sudden "meditative" keyboard, without any continuity solution. Things already done and redone, obviously. Lopatin certainly did not invent experimentation on chaos, nor obviously the "sudden release of tension", but rarely have I seen these "cultured" musical concepts internalized and postulated by a "pop" artist such as him, and especially with such a personality - it's worth highlighting - in the overall vision and in the choice of the "sound palette", as to make the overall picture, if not innovative in an absolute sense (is it possible, after all, to be innovative nowadays? an age-old question) at least personal. To follow.
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