Garden of Delete
Garden of Delete is the seventh studio album by American electronic musician Oneohtrix Point Never, released on November 13, 2015, by Warp Records. The album was preceded by an enigmatic Internet-based promotional campaign and draws on sources such as grunge music, top 40 radio tropes, and themes of adolescence and mutation. It received generally positive reviews from critics, and was included on year-end lists by several publications, including Fact, PopMatters, and The Quietus.
Garden of Delete | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
![]() | ||||
Studio album by | ||||
Released | November 13, 2015 | |||
Recorded | January – July 2015 Brooklyn, NY | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 45:16 | |||
Label | Warp | |||
Producer |
| |||
Oneohtrix Point Never chronology | ||||
| ||||
Singles from Garden of Delete | ||||
|
Background and recording
Following the release of his 2013 album R Plus Seven and work on several side projects, Lopatin was unexpectedly invited to support the rock bands Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden on their 2014 joint amphitheater tour as a replacement for Death Grips.[4][5] With the permission of Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, Lopatin performed 30-minute opening sets of self-described "cyberdrone" to vexed arena rock crowds.[6] The tour reunited him with the misanthropic 1990s grunge music of his teenage years and prompted him to reengage with his memories of adolescence and puberty,[4][5] which he described as "pretty traumatic."[7]
![](../I/Opn_nin_(cropped).jpg.webp)
Upon completing the tour and returning to Brooklyn, Lopatin rented a small, windowless basement studio and began recording new material.[8] Drawing on his experiences touring, he noted that "a lot of my thoughts on the record were about dealing with puberty and how your pubescent body is essentially the staging area for all this mutation."[9] Other inspirations included the video hosting service Vevo, satellite radio stations such as Ozzy's Boneyard and Lithium, and the writing of French philosopher Julia Kristeva (in particular, her influential 1980 essay Powers of Horror).[7] About the latter, Lopatin explained,
[Kristeva] talks about the abject things that come out that we have desire to see. So the things that we try to contain within us is like this pre-semiotic reality and society is the way we want to present ourselves ... And yet, when the stuff comes out — like, you sneeze and you kind of want to look at the napkin for a second ... So I started thinking, that's a good formal constraint, like how do I kind of vaguely represent things that leak or things that are kind of disgusting but still seductive?[10]
In addition, the isolated recording environment encouraged an abrasive and dense sound relative to Oneohtrix Point Never's recent releases,[5] with Lopatin stating that "I was making pretty aggressive, nihilistic stuff early on and kind of went away from that for a bit. In some ways I feel like I’m back now."[4]
Composition
Lopatin expressed his desire to "make a hyperactive/depressive record"[7] and "conflate really aggressive music with sugary pop progressions."[10] In addition to the "cool, frictionless pads, airy choral presets, and [...] synthesized sounds" of R Plus Seven,[11] the album draws on metal, top 40 radio, EDM, alternative rock, industrial, and trance music.[7][12][13] The album also prominently uses 'pluck sounds', more or less guitars like the Chapman Stick, and electric guitars played with shredding techniques, both digitally simulated and played. It is the first Oneohtrix Point Never album to prominently feature "sung" vocals, which were rendered using the software instrument Chipspeech. The program allowed Lopatin to write lyrics and play them chromatically.[7] Sasha Geffen of Consequence of Sound noted nonetheless that "you only catch them in snippets inside the grotesque mesh of processing Lopatin’s used to filter them."[14] The Fader wrote that "the record, a meticulous collage of mutilated samples and computer-generated voices, careens between uncanny familiarity and total alienness."[5] The release was accompanied by a lyric sheet.[11]
Thump described Garden of Delete as "a guided tour through the producer's own psychological and physical experience of adolescence—filtered through the prism of his free-wheeling and future-gazing production style," writing that "there's beat programming that sounds like heavy metal drum fills on steroids; voices pushed to demonic, pitched extremes; testosterone-fueled guitar licks worthy of Slash himself."[9] AllMusic wrote that Lopatin "uses his music's porous boundaries brilliantly, whether he's fusing molten R&B with death metal's growls and rapid-fire kick drums on the standout "Sticky Drama," crafting dizzying juxtapositions and edits on "I Bite Through It"'s violent melancholy, or naming one of the album's most beautiful ambient pop moments after the child abuse documentary Child of Rage."[15] Scott Wilson of Fact characterized the album as "full of lurid electronic presets that sound like a guitar blasting out of a wall of amplifiers and palm-muted note runs that sound like painstakingly sequenced MIDI, a grotesque, sinewy collection of sounds that evokes the intertwined sensation of curiosity and disgust I felt browsing the horror section of my local video rental store as a child in the early 1990s."[16]
Promotional campaign
The release of Garden of Delete was preceded by an enigmatic internet promotional campaign devised by Lopatin in collaboration with friends. The album was announced in August 2015 via a series of internet posts originating from Lopatin's website, including a cryptic PDF letter to Lopatin's fans, which were followed by further material.[17][18] The project sketched out a loose fictional backstory involving Lopatin himself, an acne-ridden teenage alien blogger named Ezra, and a supposed 1990s band called Kaoss Edge.[11][19] It incorporated websites (Ezra's c. 1990s blog and Kaoss Edge's 'official' website), fabricated interviews, Twitter accounts, invented music genres (i.e. "hypergrunge") and teaser videos. Kaoss Edge's main website contains a repository of MIDI files (most from the album while others are transcripts of Allan Holdsworth's guitar solos), along with a band biography and discography with links to internet pages for unaffiliated cultural entities (i.e. flyers for prog rock band Rush, YouTube guitar tutorials) and other obscure information scattered around the site.[7][11][1]
Lopatin described the promo campaign as an attempt to “create a world where I can put into motion vague, interesting ideas, and see how they interact with each other," clarifying that "it’s not deeply plotted out, more of an ongoing experiment with the concepts floating around in my head."[20] The Quietus described the campaign as "like getting caught up in some late-night YouTube, Wikipedia rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and ill-advised medical self-diagnoses than a press release for an album, encouraging full submersion in something that was neither fact or fiction but had the quality of being somehow vital and totally necessary at that moment."[21] Philip Sherburne of Pitchfork Media wrote that "the loose, extra-musical narrative developed across a range of apocrypha that orbit the album [...] may all seem, from the outside, like so much masturbatory energy spillage, but dig deep enough, and they all become part of the larger work."[22]
The album's first single, "I Bite Through It," was released on September 3, 2015, and was followed later that month with the release of the album's MIDI files, with Lopatin encouraging fans to create their own songs from the material.[23][24][25] Second single "Mutant Standard" was released on October 21.[26] "Sticky Drama" was released on November 4, and accompanied by a two-part music video directed by Jon Rafman.[27] In Fall 2016, Lopatin premiered a music video for "Animals," directed by Rick Alverson and featuring Val Kilmer, at UCLA's Hammer Museum film series Ecco: The Videos of Oneohtrix Point Never and Related Works.[28]
Critical reception
Aggregate scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AnyDecentMusic? | 7.8/10[29] |
Metacritic | 79/100[30] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Consequence of Sound | A−[14] |
Exclaim! | 9/10[31] |
The Guardian | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Mojo | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Pitchfork | 8.7/10[22] |
Q | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Rolling Stone | ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Spin | 8/10[36] |
Vice | A−[37] |
Garden of Delete received generally positive reviews from critics. AllMusic's Heather Phares called the album "some of Lopatin's most intellectually engaging music as well as some of his funniest, darkest, and most cathartic."[12] Writing for Pitchfork, Philip Sherburne described the album as "absolutely gripping—strange, moving, hilarious, sometimes pushing the limits of good taste," adding that, "this time out, [Lopatin] ventures even deeper into the uncanny valley separating "real" sounds from mimetic ones."[22] In a positive review UK magazine The Skinny described Garden of Delete in contrast to Oneohtrix Point Never's previous work as a "seemingly aggressive record; muscular in tone, schizophrenic in delivery, all the while possessing a maniacal grin on its face," calling it "Oneohtrix’s anti-ambient record."[38] Kyle Carney of Exclaim! wrote that the record manages to sound accessible despite its complexities, calling it "a sound collage like no other."[31] Under the Radar called it "a complex beast of shade and mood, and [...] Lopatin's best work yet."[39]
Writing for Consequence of Sound, Sasha Geffen called the album "OPN’s most emotional work to date and also his most ridiculous. Its tragedy is bound up with its humor; its sublimity comes from the places where it feels the most broken."[14] Uncut wrote that the album "ultimately dissolves into a beautifully arranged and slightly sickly morass of curdled pop tropes, out of which spurt a bodacious riff or glossy rave arpeggio. Oddly no-one does this better."[30] John Garratt of PopMatters described the record as "another adventure watching your own sense of subjectivity drown in a pool of confusion."[40] For The Line of Best Fit, Jennifer Johnson opined that "GOD isn’t about sensory pleasure. It’s about sensory gluttony, auditory overload, and revelling in the difficulty of its pacing," concluding that "It isn’t so much an album as a junk shop: that proverbial collection of oddities whose perceived value reflects more about the patron than it does the owner who placed them there."[41] In a mixed review, The Guardian's Paul McInnes wrote that "Lopatin is never quite able to stand still and enjoy some of the sounds he creates. This remains a project for only a very particular kind of pop picker."[42] In another mixed review, Dusted Magazine wrote that "at its best, you can get lost inside Garden of Delete’s rabbit hole of different directions and unexpected asides, but at other times it's easy to feel shut-out, as if you're looking in at someone's intellectual ADHD, but he's steadfastly refusing to meet your gaze."[43]
Accolades
Garden of Delete was included as one of the year's best albums by a variety of publications.
Publication | Accolade | Rank |
---|---|---|
Dummy | The 30 Best Albums of 2015[44] | 1 |
Fact | The 50 Best Albums of 2015[45] | 2 |
Pitchfork | Top 50 Albums of the Year (2015) | 11 |
PopMatters | The 80 Best Albums of 2015[46] | 7 |
Spin | The 20 Best Avant Albums of 2015[47] | 2 |
Stereogum | The 50 Best Albums of 2015[48] | 49 |
The Quietus | The Quietus Albums of 2015[49] | 8 |
The Wire | Top 50 Releases of 2015[50] | 18 |
Track listing
All tracks are written by Daniel Lopatin, except where noted.
No. | Title | Composer | Length |
---|---|---|---|
1. | "Intro" | 0:27 | |
2. | "Ezra" | 4:26 | |
3. | "ECCOJAMC1" | 0:32 | |
4. | "Sticky Drama" | 4:17 | |
5. | "SDFK" |
| 1:27 |
6. | "Mutant Standard" | 8:06 | |
7. | "Child of Rage" |
| 4:52 |
8. | "Animals" | 3:54 | |
9. | "I Bite Through It" | 3:17 | |
10. | "Freaky Eyes" |
| 6:31 |
11. | "Lift" | 4:09 | |
12. | "No Good" |
| 3:18 |
Total length: | 45:16 |
No. | Title | Length |
---|---|---|
13. | "The Knuckleheads" | 3:48 |
Total length: | 49:04 |
Sample credits[51]
- "SDFK" contains samples of "Brown" by Grotus and "Dream in White on White" by John Luther Adams.
- "Child of Rage" contains samples of "My Love Is Like a Red Red Rose" by Michael Finnissy, "Cruel When Complete" by Dome and the documentary Child of Rage: A Story of Abuse.
- "Freaky Eyes" contains samples of "Am I Supposed to Let It by Again (Above the Covers)" by Roger Rodier.
- "No Good" contains samples of "Return of the Knodler Show" by Hans Reichel.
Personnel
Credits adapted from AllMusic.[52]
- Daniel Lopatin – producer, artwork
- Paul Corley – mixing, additional production
- Dave Kutch – mastering
- Sebastian Krüger – photography
- Andrew Stasser – design
- Beau Thomas – vinyl cut
Charts
Chart (2015) | Peak position |
---|---|
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[53] | 95 |
Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[54] | 199 |
Japanese Albums (Oricon)[55] | 108 |
UK Albums (OCC)[56] | 149 |
UK Record Store Albums (Official Record Store Chart)[57] | 19 |
US Heatseekers Albums (Billboard)[58] | 2 |
US Independent Albums (Billboard)[59] | 14 |
US Top Dance/Electronic Albums (Billboard)[60] | 2 |
References
- "Oneohtrix Point Never unpicks the secrets of Garden Of Delete". factmag.com. November 12, 2015. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "Loud and Quiet". loudandquiet.com. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "Review: Oneohtrix Point Never - Garden Of Delete". Resident Advisor. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never interview: Garden of Delete - The Skinny". theskinny.co.uk. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "Going Home With Oneohtrix Point Never". The FADER. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "Watch Oneohtrix Point Never Perform "Hard Rock Cyberdrone" Customized For The Nine Inch Nails/Soundgarden Tour". stereogum.com. August 6, 2014. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- Bulut, Selim. "Oneohtrix Point Never: "So eerie and seductive."". Dummy Mag. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
- Rolling Stone | Hear Oneohtrix Point Never Glitchbanger From First 'Rock' Record
- Freelander, Emilie. "Oneohtrix Point Never Told Us the Story Behind Every Single Track On 'Garden of Delete'". Thump. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
- Yoshida, Emily. "Getting to the thrash point: a conversation with Daniel Lopatin, aka Oneohtrix Point Never". The Verge. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never: Garden of Delete Album Review - Pitchfork". pitchfork.com. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- AllMusic
- http://thefourohfive.com. "Oneohtrix Point Never - Garden of Delete". thefourohfive.com. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- Geffen, Sasha (November 12, 2015). "Oneohtrix Point Never – Garden of Delete". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- Phares, Heather. "Garden of Delete – Oneohtrix Point Never". AllMusic. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- Wilson, Scott. "Oneohtrix Point Never unpicks the secrets of Garden Of Delete". Fact. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never announces new album". factmag.com. August 18, 2015. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never Announces New Album Garden Of Delete". stereogum.com. August 18, 2015. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "Did Oneohtrix Point Never create a fictional band?". factmag.com. September 4, 2015. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- Suarez, Gary. "So, What's the Deal With Oneohtrix Point Never's Alien-Themed New Album? He Explains and Offers a Teaser". Vulture. Retrieved March 11, 2016.
- Smith, Karl. "Powers of Horror: Oneohtrix Point Never Interviewed". The Quietus. Retrieved March 7, 2016.
- Sherburne, Philip (November 9, 2015). "Oneohtrix Point Never: Garden of Delete". Pitchfork. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never Shares Garden of Delete MIDI Files, Announces Tour - Pitchfork". pitchfork.com. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- Rettig, James (September 3, 2015). "Oneohtrix Point Never – "I Bite Through It" + Garden Of Delete Details". Stereogum. Retrieved September 4, 2015.
- Sherburne, Philip (September 3, 2015). "Oneohtrix Point Never "I Bite Through It"". Pitchfork. Retrieved September 4, 2015.
- Monroe, Jazz (October 21, 2015). "Oneohtrix Point Never Shares "Mutant Standard"". Pitchfork. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved October 21, 2015.
- Camp, Zoe (November 4, 2015). "Oneohtrix Point Never Explores the World of LARPing in "Sticky Drama" Short Film". Pitchfork. Pitchfork Media. Retrieved November 4, 2015.
- "IN REAL LIFE: FILM & VIDEO, SCREENINGS Ecco: The Videos of Oneohtrix Point Never and Related Works". Hammer Museum. Retrieved November 18, 2016.
- "Garden Of Delete by Oneohtrix Point Never reviews". AnyDecentMusic?. Retrieved November 16, 2016.
- "Reviews for Garden of Delete by Oneohtrix Point Never". Metacritic. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
- Carney, Kyle (November 11, 2015). "Oneohtrix Point Never: Garden of Delete". Exclaim!. Retrieved January 4, 2016.
- MacInnes, Paul (November 26, 2015). "Oneohtrix Point Never: Garden of Delete review – the soundtrack to Justin Bieber's anxiety dreams". The Guardian. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never: Garden of Delete". Mojo (264): 60. November 2015.
- Howe, Rupert (December 2015). "Oneohtrix Point Never: Garden of Delete". Q (353): 112.
- Grant, Sarah (December 2, 2015). "Garden of Delete". Rolling Stone. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- Joyce, Colin (November 13, 2015). "Review: Oneohtrix Point Never Puts Us Through Puberty Again on 'Garden of Delete'". Spin. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- Christgau, Robert (December 4, 2015). "Cybergrunge and Future Electronics: Expert Witness with Robert Christgau". Vice. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never: Garden of Delete - Review - The Skinny". theskinny.co.uk. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "Garden of Delete". www.undertheradarmag.com. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- Garratt, John (November 9, 2015). "Review: Oneohtrix Point Never: Garden of Delete". PopMatters. Retrieved December 7, 2015.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never chronicles a mechanised cold-sweat nightmare". thelineofbestfit.com. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never: Garden of Delete review – the soundtrack to Justin Bieber's anxiety dreams". Retrieved November 26, 2015.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never — Garden of Delete (Warp)". dusted. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- Staff, Dummy. "The 30 best albums of 2015". www.dummymag.com. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "The 50 Best Albums of 2015". FROONT. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "The 80 Best Albums of 2015". popmatters.com. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "The 20 Best Avant Albums of 2015". spin.com. December 9, 2015. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "The 50 Best Albums Of 2015". stereogum.com. December 1, 2015. Retrieved December 10, 2015.
- "The Quietus - Features - The Quietus Albums Of 2015, In Association With Norman Records". thequietus.com. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "2015 Rewind: Releases of the Year 1–50". The Wire. No. 383. London. January 2016. p. 34 – via Exact Editions. (subscription required)
- Garden of Delete (liner notes). Oneohtrix Point Never. Warp. 2015. WARPLP266.CS1 maint: others (link)
- "Garden of Delete - Oneohtrix Point Never - Credits - AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved June 6, 2017.
- "Ultratop.be – Oneohtrix Point Never – Garden of Delete" (in Dutch). Hung Medien. Retrieved November 21, 2015.
- "Ultratop.be – Oneohtrix Point Never – Garden of Delete" (in French). Hung Medien. Retrieved November 21, 2015.
- "Garden of delete". Oricon. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
- Chart Log UK: "CLUK Update 21.11.2015 (wk47)". UK Albums Chart. Zobbel.de. Retrieved November 29, 2016.
- "Official Record Store Chart Top 40". Official Charts Company. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never Chart History (Heatseekers Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never Chart History (Independent Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved March 5, 2016.
- "Oneohtrix Point Never Chart History (Top Dance/Electronic Albums)". Billboard. Retrieved November 30, 2015.