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ALBUM REVIEW | Ambient

Oneohtrix Point Never, ‘Replica’

As Oneohtrix Point Never, Brooklyn resident and Sudbury native Daniel Lopatin doesn’t create ambience so much as distill it. His sixth release, “Replica,’’ is cobbled largely from videotaped ads salvaged from the ’80s and ’90s. And while toying with nostalgic textures is nothing new (see: Boards of Canada, the Books, and every chillwave track) Lopatin’s mining of the material is less in search of irony than its ore. By letting the tones do the talking (indeed, most speech on the album is clipped into orphaned glottal stops and widowed fricatives) the chance melodies and spectral stretches of beauty (like the melancholy strings that dawn upon “Child Solider’’) make “Replica’’ a powerful meditation on desire and death. Many of the best tracks (“Power of Persuasion,’’ “Nassau’’) are fueled by repetition of tiny fragments. Slow gradations animate each piece, altering their angles. The hypnotically woozy thump of “Sleep Dealer’’ plays against a repeated “ahh’’ of the sort that could only follow that first sip of Folger’s - and you can’t help but be drawn in a little. The sounds, after all, were designed with your satisfaction in mind.

ESSENTIAL “Sleep Dealer’’

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