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**Oneohtrix Point Never - R Plus Seven**
★★★★☆

By 2013, Daniel Lopatin had already established himself as one of electronic music's most compelling shape-shifters. Operating under the Oneohtrix Point Never moniker since 2007, the Brooklyn-based producer had spent years excavating the ghostly remains of 1980s new age and ambient music, transforming forgotten synthesizer presets into haunting digital archaeology. But with R Plus Seven, his seventh studio album and second for Warp Records, Lopatin embarked on his most audacious journey yet – a fever dream through the uncanny valley of contemporary digital existence.

The album emerged from a period of intense creative upheaval for Lopatin. Following 2011's breakthrough Replica, which famously constructed entire compositions from television commercial samples, he found himself grappling with the overwhelming saturation of digital media in modern life. The title itself references a mysterious internet meme about television ratings, but Lopatin has remained characteristically cryptic about its exact meaning, suggesting instead that it represents some kind of temporal displacement – a glitch in the matrix of contemporary experience.

Musically, R Plus Seven occupies a fascinating middle ground between accessibility and alienation. While rooted in the ambient and drone traditions that have always informed Lopatin's work, the album ventures into more rhythmically complex territory, incorporating elements of IDM, glitch, and even traces of classical composition. The result is something that feels simultaneously ancient and futuristic, like discovering a cache of synthesizer music from an alternate timeline where the Renaissance never ended and computers were invented in the 16th century.

Opening track "Boring Angel" immediately establishes the album's disorienting aesthetic. What begins as a seemingly straightforward ambient piece gradually mutates into something far stranger, with processed vocal samples and glitched percussion creating an atmosphere of digital decay. It's beautiful and unsettling in equal measure, like watching a Renaissance painting slowly dissolve into pixels.

The album's centrepiece, "Americans," ranks among Lopatin's finest achievements. Built around a hypnotic arpeggiated sequence that recalls both Steve Reich and Aphex Twin, the track slowly accumulates layers of processed choir samples and synthetic textures until it achieves an almost transcendent quality. There's something deeply moving about its combination of technological sophistication and emotional vulnerability – it sounds like what angels might compose if they had access to Pro Tools.

"He She" offers perhaps the album's most accessible moment, its relatively conventional structure and melodic focus providing a brief respite from the surrounding sonic chaos. Yet even here, Lopatin can't resist introducing unsettling elements – pitch-shifted vocals that hover between human and machine, rhythmic patterns that seem to skip like damaged CDs.

The closing trilogy of "Chrome Country," "Sticky Drama," and "Inside World" represents some of Lopatin's most ambitious work to date. These pieces abandon conventional song structures entirely, instead unfolding like abstract sonic sculptures. "Chrome Country" in particular achieves an almost overwhelming sensory overload, its cascading arpeggios and processed samples creating a kind of digital sublime that's both exhilarating and exhausting.

What makes R Plus Seven so compelling is its refusal to offer easy answers or comfortable resolutions. This is music that mirrors our contemporary moment – beautiful but alienating, sophisticated yet emotionally ambiguous. Lopatin has created a sonic equivalent to the experience of endless scrolling through social media feeds, where profound beauty and existential emptiness coexist in an uncomfortable dance.

The album's influence on subsequent electronic music has been profound. Its particular blend of accessibility and experimentalism helped pave the way for a new generation of producers who weren't afraid to combine pop sensibilities with avant-garde techniques. Artists like Arca, Holly Herndon, and even mainstream acts like The Weeknd (for whom Lopatin has produced) show clear traces of R Plus Seven's DNA.

A decade on, R Plus Seven feels remarkably prescient. Its exploration of digital alienation and technological anxiety has only become more relevant as our lives have become increasingly mediated by screens and algorithms. Lopatin created not just an album but a kind of sonic prophecy – a glimpse into a future that has largely come to pass. In an era of endless digital stimulation, R Plus Seven remains a fascinatingly complex mirror, reflecting both the beauty and the horror of our hyperconnected age.