Oneohtrix Point Never | |
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.jpg) 2013 press photo | |
| Background information | |
| Also known as |
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| Born | Daniel Lopatin (1982-07-25)July 25, 1982 (age 43) Wayland, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Genres | |
| Works | Daniel Lopatin discography |
| Years active | 2004–present |
| Labels |
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| Website | pointnever |
Daniel Lopatin (born July 25, 1982), best known asOneohtrix Point Never orOPN, is an Americanelectronic music producer, composer, singer, and songwriter.[2][9] His work experiments withtropes from an eclectic range of musical genres and eras, and has featuredsample-based composition and complexMIDI production.[10] He began releasing music in the 2000s, and received early acclaim for thesynthesizer-based compilationRifts (2009) as well as the influentialvaporwave side-projectChuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1 (2010).
Lopatin signed withWarp in 2013, and has since released studio albums on the label to positive critical reception. He has also contributed production work to various artists, most extensivelythe Weeknd,Moses Sumney, andSoccer Mommy. He has composedscores for films such asGood Time (2017),Uncut Gems (2019), andMarty Supreme (2025); the first won him the Soundtrack Award at the2017 Cannes Film Festival.[11]
Lopatin was born and raised inMassachusetts,[12] and is the son ofRussian-Jewish[13] "refusenik" emigrants from theSoviet Union, both with musical backgrounds.[14] Some of his first experiments withelectronic music were inspired by his father's music collection[2] and hisRoland Juno-60synthesizer, an instrument that Lopatin would inherit and go on to use extensively in his own music.[15] In high school, Lopatin played synthesizer in groups with friends and future collaborator Joel Ford, performing at school events.[16] Lopatin attendedHampshire College in Massachusetts[12] before moving toBrooklyn, New York, to attend graduate school atPratt Institute, studyingarchival science; the field of study would go on to influence aspects of his music and artistic practice.[17] During that time, he also became interested and involved in Brooklyn'sundergroundnoise music scene.[18]
Lopatin initially released music under a number of aliases and as part of several groups, including Infinity Window and Astronaut,[19][2] before adopting the pseudonym Oneohtrix Point Never, a verbal play on the name of the Boston FM radio stationMagic 106.7.[20] Early OPN recordings are regarded as drawing inspiration from 1970s and 80sarpeggiated synthesizer music,new-age music tropes, and contemporary developments in noise music.[21] Lopatin released a series ofcassette andCD-R projects interspersed with a trilogy of full-length albums:Betrayed in the Octagon (2007),Zones Without People (2009), andRussian Mind (2009). Much of this material was eventually collected on the 2009 compilationRifts, which brought him critical acclaim;[22] it was named the second-best album of 2009 by UK magazineThe Wire.[18] The same year, Lopatin released theaudio-visual DVD project[23]Memory Vague,[24] which included his profile-raisingYouTube video "nobody here", and "eccojam".[25] His work during this period would be associated with the late 2000s undergroundhypnagogic pop trend.[26]
In June 2010, Lopatin followedRifts with his major label debutReturnal, released onEditions Mego.[27] In the same year, he released the influential limited-edition pseudonymous cassetteChuck Person's Eccojams Vol. 1, which would help inspire the 2010s Internet-based genrevaporwave,[7][28][29] and he formed the duoGames (later renamed Ford & Lopatin) with childhood friend Joel Ford. Lopatin's next album,Replica, was released in 2011 on his newly formed label Software Recording, to further critical praise.[30] On it, Lopatin developed asample-based approach that drew on the audio of 1980s and '90s television advertisements.[30] Also that year, Lopatin participated in the collaborative albumFRKWYS Vol. 7 with musiciansDavid Borden,James Ferraro, Samuel Godin andLaurel Halo as part ofRVNG's label series;[31] Ford & Lopatin releasedChannel Pressure, and OPN was chosen to perform at theAll Tomorrow's Parties festival.[32] Lopatin and visual artist Nate Boyce collaborated on the 2011Reliquary House performance installation; the music from this project would later be released on the split OPN/Rene Hell albumMusic for Reliquary House / In 1980 I Was a Blue Square (2012).[33] In 2012, Lopatin collaborated withTim Hecker on the albumInstrumental Tourist.[34]
In 2013, Lopatin signed withWarp Records. His label debut,R Plus Seven, was released on September 30, 2013, to positive reception.[35] Lopatin collaborated with several artists on visual accompaniments, live performances, and internet projects for the album, among them his frequent collaborator Nate Boyce;Jon Rafman; Takeshi Murata;Jacob Ciocci, and John Michael Boling. Also in 2013, Lopatin composed his firstfilm score—forSofia Coppola's filmThe Bling Ring, a collaboration withBrian Reitzell[36]—and OPN participated in the Warp xTate event and was commissioned to create a piece inspired byJeremy Deller'sThe History of the World.[37]
In 2014, Lopatin supportedNine Inch Nails on their tour withSoundgarden, as a replacement forDeath Grips.[38] On October 4, 2014, he presented a world premiere live soundtrack for Koji Morimoto's 1995 anime filmMagnetic Rose. The event took place at theJodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, and featuredAnohni on a rendition of the OPN song "Returnal" as well as audio-visual works from Nate Boyce which have been hosted by theBarbican Centre in London, theMuseum of Modern Art andMoMA PS1.[39] In the same year, OPN releasedCommissions I forRecord Store Day, featuring several commissioned pieces.[40] He also contributed "Need" to theBleep:10 compilation in celebration of the online retailer's 10th anniversary.[41] This was followed byCommissions II in 2015.[42]
Lopatin released his second Warp LPGarden of Delete in November 2015[43] following an enigmaticpromotional campaign.[44][45] He also composed the score for the 2015 filmPartisan, directed by Ariel Kleiman.[36] In 2016, Lopatin contributed to British singer Anohni's 2016 albumHopelessness and 2017 EPParadise[46] as well asChicagofootwork producer DJ Earl's 2016 albumOpen Your Eyes.[47] In Fall 2016, UCLA'sHammer Museum hosted the film seriesEcco: The Videos of Oneohtrix Point Never and Related Works, dedicated to the visual work of Lopatin and his collaborators.[48]
In January 2017, a collaboration between OPN andFKA Twigs was confirmed.[49] In 2017, OPN provided the soundtrack for the filmGood Time, directed byBen & Josh Safdie.[50] He won the Soundtrack Award at the 2017Cannes Film Festival for his work on the film,[11] which included a collaboration with singerIggy Pop entitled "The Pure and the Damned".[50]The film's soundtrack was released via Warp on August 11, 2017.[51]
In June 1, 2018, Lopatin released his eighth studio albumAge Of on Warp.[52] The album was accompanied byMyriad, an expansive conceptual live project dubbed a "concertscape" and "four-part epochalsong cycle" and featuring collaborations with live musicians and the visual artists Daniel Swan, David Rudnick, and Nate Boyce; the project was premiered at thePark Avenue Armory in May 2018.[53] Also in 2018, OPN collaborated withDavid Byrne on his LPAmerican Utopia.[54] In 2019, he composedthe original score to the Safdie Brothers' 2019 feature filmUncut Gems.[55]
In 2020, he collaborated withthe Weeknd on the albumAfter Hours, producing two and writing three of its songs. On September 25, he announced the release of his ninth album, titledMagic Oneohtrix Point Never, which was released on October 30, 2020, and accompanied by music videos and onlinemixtapes. Lopatin was the musical director for the Weeknd's band during theSuper Bowl LV halftime show in February 2021.[56] He again collaborated with The Weeknd on the albumDawn FM, released in January 2022, on which he wrote and produced 13 songs, as well as serving as executive producer alongside the Weeknd andMax Martin.[57] OPN also performed with Abel on thePrime Video exclusive concert film,The Dawn FM Experience.[58]
In August 2023, he announced his tenth studio album,Again, which was released on September 29.[59] Also in 2023, he executive produced the score for theBenny Safdie andNathan Fielder satirical comedy seriesThe Curse withJohn Medeski.[60] In 2025, OPN again collaborated with The Weeknd on his albumHurry Up Tomorrow as a co-producer.[61] Lopatin also co-scored the 2025 accompanying movieof the same name.[62] Lopatin alongside withJosh Safdie composed the soundtrack to Safdie's 2025 feature film,Marty Supreme, the first film by Safdie since his creative split from his brotherBenny Safdie. In October, he announced the albumTranquilizer to release on November 17.[63]
Lopatin's musical work has been described as recontextualizing sounds and styles from different eras, ranging from the "vintage synth oddities" of his early work "to the '90sTV commercial-samplingReplica and thealt-rock-inspiredGarden of Delete", according toAllMusic's Heather Phares.[64]Jon Pareles ofThe New York Times said that Lopatin has engaged with "a broad and deeply idiosyncratic array ofgenres,samples, sources and strategies, fromminimalism tocollage tonoise", often using "snippets of material—ad jingles, saccharinepop productions, throwaway dialogue—that he can't entirely dismiss askitsch."[10]
Lopatin has expressed disinterest in committing to one style or genre.[65] In 2018, he began to use the term "Compressionism"—a riff oncompressors, used by audio engineers—to describe what he referred to as "a historically motivated need to organize and make sense of an illogical flow of external media inputs."[66] To be Compressionist is to pragmatically "accept the barrage" of popular culture,[66] describing it as a process of "dealing with the overload of knowing about too much stuff, about being exposed to too many historical inputs, and then turning it into some kind of coherent jumble [...] It's still a jumble, but it's a kind of coherency of drawing connections between things."[65] Lopatin has described his creative process as "trying to create these abstract forms that might be suggestive of the influences and inputs I'm getting".[67] Lopatin has said that he began to observe "weird production" elements as a child, saying that he "love[d] thenegative space of music so much."[68]
ForStereogum, Lindsey Rhoades described him as "almost more of a philosopher/sound-collagist than he is a musician", noting his tendency to "elevate sounds otherwise considered cheesy" and prompt reflection "about why you have aversions to certain tones and timbres, and why others immediately bringchildhood impressions screaming back into your brain."[69] Art theorists David Burrows and Simon O'Sullivan described Oneohtrix Point Never as a project of "productions that are less concrete and moreaffective in terms of the emotional resonances of music", highlighting the way "in which experience and the collapse of experience loop together [in Lopatin's music], forming circuits of refrains, samples, rhythms,submemetic vibrations and noise."[70]
Crediting the music that his parents introduced him to, Lopatin has stated various musical influences including "all the strange moments fromBeatles songs", thejazz fusion groupsMahavishnu Orchestra andReturn to Forever,[68][71] andprogressive soul musicianStevie Wonder,[2] as well as later personal influences such as electronic composerVangelis,[68]hip hop producerDJ Premier,[71] andshoegaze bandMy Bloody Valentine.[13] He has also cited literary influences, including Romanian pessimist philosopherEmil Cioran,[72] andscience fiction authorsStanisław Lem andPhilip K. Dick.[73]
Feature film
| Year | Association | Category | Nominated work | Result | Ref |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Berlin Music Video Awards | Most Bizarre | Sticky Drama | Nominated | [74] |
| 2018 | AIM Independent Music Awards | Best Creative Packaging | Age Of | Nominated | [75] |
| 2019 | Libera Awards | Best Dance/Electronic Record | Nominated | [76] | |
| Best Outlier Record | Nominated | ||||
| 2021 | Magic Oneohtrix Point Never | Nominated | [77] | ||
| Berlin Music Video Awards | Best Experimental | Lost But Never Alone | Nominated | [78] |
Credit Oneohtrix Point Never—who returns from his work on 2022'sDawn FM and 2020'sAfter Hours—and Mike Dean—who returns from his work on 2023's flummoxing music to HBO'sThe Idol—as co-producers to enhance and sharpen every second of the synth and drum programming.
Daniel Lopatin, a.k.a. Oneohtrix Point Never, who also co-produced the album, brings his synth to deliver a score whose mood and affect go beyond anything Tesfaye penned for the project.
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