“Black Snow” is the lead single from Oneohtrix Point Never’s (Electronic experimentalist Daniel Lopatin’s most famous moniker) new LP. Lopatin is known for the electronic soundscapes in creates on his records. His previous record Garden of Delete, had an album cover reminiscent of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, but its ties to analogue music ended there. Paired with the bizarre visuals and world building of the music videos for several songs on Garden of Delete, the album grabs you by the collar and drags you into a sort of hell reminiscent of a turn of the millennia junkyard. Lopatin remains consistent on his new single. The new single is just as deliberate and detailed in the world it builds, but this world is on a much smaller scale.
Hopes are high for the next Oneohtrix Point Never record, especially with this lead single. The track is tonally like Garden of Delete – it feels as decayed and full of unintentional sounding (but secretly deliberate) digital artifacts. It features a vocal performance by Lopatin himself, a rarity in the Oneohtrix Point Never discography. The vocals are just as post-apocalyptic and sort of off as his instrumentals, though amazingly the vocal and instrumental tracks do not clash on “Black Snow”. Instead they perfectly conjure the tone conveyed in the music video – they portray a sort of “imp of the perverse,” a normalization of the most detestable evil possible. The video is set in a plane of existence other than our own, where a red-skinned demon, takes off his hazmat suit to reveal his sleazy summer-wear that is hidden underneath. This hellish creature with a smile of top row normal teeth and bottom row gross (I can’t describe them any other way) teeth turns out to be just like us, he’s got a messy room and a passion for music.
Watch the video here:
Oneohtrix Point Never’s new album, Age Of, will be out June 1st on Warp records.