Oneohtrix Point Never
Good Time

THE REVIEW

"Good Time": is what you spend with Oneohtrix Point Never. Imagine a sci-fi atmosphere, a dark one. The kind from '90s video games. Yes, the kind that makes you feel a bit anxious. Because, let's be honest, many of us wouldn't last long in a futuristic chaos situation.

So: darkness, anxiety, haste, unknown... fear. But fear of what?

Fear of the future, and of the cage we're in.

All of this, however, before you can at least see the trailer of the movie for which this album is the soundtrack. A film by the Safdie brothers, where Connie (also the title of one of the tracks) tries to get his handicapped brother out of jail, arrested after a clumsy bank robbery.
Okay, maybe we were wrong about the sci-fi setting. But here the fear of the unknown, of the future, the haste, the anxiety, and darkness are all present. And there's also confinement.

The atmospheres of this album are hypnotic and, as usual, open to various interpretations. It's almost like falling into a conscious sleep: occasionally you hear a human voice, a semblance of dialogue, and then you reach a state of half-sleep for a few seconds. You try to wake up, to return to yourself, but nothing doing. Mr. Lopatin's synth clings to your ankles, with weight, and pulls you back down.

Being enchanted by the sounds of Oneohtrix Point Never is nothing new. Okay, perhaps the levels of psychedelia reached in "Garden of Delete" can't be repeated, but "Good Time" also has its share of hypnotic devices. Many of which are borrowed from the previous album. We are certainly in front of a more orderly work, a perfect soundtrack: psychedelic and engaging, making you lose consciousness, but never the thread.

The sinister sounds of these tracks get into your veins, they numb you. Then, occasionally, they give you a nice jolt. As happens in Connie, where Daniel Lopatin tests the listener's ear with what many would call "noise". It creates a distraction, annoys, disturbs, before changing patterns and shifting to more palatable sounds. Often softer, to provide relief. And in that relief, you fall back into hypnosis, and you almost prefer it. Better to stay there, rather than wake up and find yourself in total chaos. Nothing new, of course, the same scheme can be found in tracks like Freaky Eyes and Sticky Drama from the aforementioned "Garden of Delete", but also in various tracks from earlier works, like "R Plus Seven". And after all, it should be like that, an artist must have his signature style.

Also take note of the last track: The Pure and the Damned, featuring a collaboration with Iggy Pop.

"Every day I think about untangling and untying myself from these ropes I find myself in
And to lead a pure life
I look towards the clear sky.
I won't get there
But it's a beautiful dream, it's a beautiful dream"

Even in the last track, the only one with actual lyrics, we're inside a cage, trapped. Without knowing what awaits us, and with a tinge of awareness that, what we really desire, we will never attain. And that's okay. Yes, because that's how life works, but dreaming doesn't cost a thing:

"One day, I swear, we will go to a place where we can do everything we want
And we can have crocodiles as pets"

But yes, let's turn off the light and dream. Because with Mr. Lopatin, dreaming comes naturally.