''Rifts'' is a 2009 compilation album by

Oneohtrix Point Never Daniel Lopatin (born July 25, 1982), best known as Oneohtrix Point Never or OPN, is an American experimental electronic music producer, composer, singer and songwriter. His music has experimented with tropes from various music genres and eras, s ...

, the solo alias of Brooklyn

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

ian Daniel Lopatin. The album collects Lopatin's early

synth A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

-based recordings under the moniker dating back to 2003, including the three limited-run LPs ''

Betrayed in the Octagon ''Betrayed in the Octagon'' is the first album by electronic artist Oneohtrix Point Never, initially credited to "Magic Oneohtrix Point Never". Background The album is the first Lopatin released under the "Oneohtrix Point Never" pseudonym. The a ...

'' (2007), ''Zones Without People'' (2009) and ''Russian Mind'' (2009), as well as several additional

cassette Cassette may refer to: Technology * Cassette tape (or ''musicassette'', ''audio cassette'', ''cassette tape'', or ''tape''), a worldwide standard for analog audio recording and playback ** Cassette single (or "Cassingle"), a music single in th ...

and

CD-R CD-R (Compact disc-recordable) is a digital optical disc storage format. A CD-R disc is a compact disc that can be written once and read arbitrarily many times. CD-R discs (CD-Rs) are readable by most CD readers manufactured prior to the i ...

releases. It was originally released on No Fun Productions in 2009 as a 2 disc set. The initial issue of ''Rifts'' sold beyond expectations and brought Lopatin early critical praise; UK magazine ''

The Wire ''The Wire'' is an American Crime film, crime drama Television show, television series created and primarily written by author and former police reporter David Simon. The series was broadcast by the cable network HBO in the United States. ''The ...

'' named it the No. 2 album of 2009. In 2012, the album was reissued as an expanded 3 disc/5 LP set, including previously unreleased tracks, on Lopatin's own Software label.

Recording and composition

''Rifts'' collects Oneohtrix Point Never's electronic recordings dating back to 2003, primarily drawing from Lopatin's trilogy of limited-run LPs: ''

'' (2007), ''Zones Without People'' (2009), and ''Russian Mind'' (2009). He began exploring sounds inspired by '70s

cosmic music ''Cosmic Music'' is a jazz album by John Coltrane and Alice Coltrane released after John Coltrane's death. John Coltrane only plays on two tracks, "Manifestation" and "Reverend King". Background In late January 1966, Coltrane and his group, which ...

and '80s

new age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...

during his time as part of Brooklyn's

noise music Noise music is a genre of music that is characterised by the expressive use of noise within a musical context. This type of music tends to challenge the distinction that is made in conventional musical practices between musical and non-musical ...

scene in the early 2000s. Following the recording of ''Russian Mind'' in 2009 he noticed a "clear arc" between his three studio albums,Kawaii, Keith (November 24, 2009)
"Oneohtrix Point Never"

Tiny Mix Tapes ''Tiny Mix Tapes'' (also ''TMT'' or ''tinymixtapes'') is an online music and film webzine that focuses primarily on new music and related news. In addition to its reviews, it is noted for its subversive, political, and sometimes surreal news, a ...

. Retrieved July 24, 2016. which suggested the records were "basically a

Stanislaw Lem Stanislav and variants may refer to: People *Stanislav (given name), a Slavic given name with many spelling variations (Stanislaus, Stanislas, Stanisław, etc.) Places * Stanislav, a coastal village in Kherson, Ukraine * Stanislaus County, Cali ...

-style trilogy of stories about vague metaphysical sci-fi." The

Roland Juno-60 The Roland Juno-60 is an analog synthesizer manufactured by the Roland Corporation between 1982 and 1984. It followed the Juno-6, an almost identical synthesizer released months earlier. The Juno synthesizers introduced Roland's digitally control ...

analog

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

, which Lopatin inherited from his father, served as his primary instrument. He noted that "a ton of he material on ''Rifts''is improvised. With the exception of sequencer based stuff, I record straight synth jams and then use that as source material which gets fleshed out and assembled on the computer." The compilation showcases Lopatin's distinctive approach to synthesizers, employing "ornate electronic

arpeggios A broken chord is a chord broken into a sequence of notes. A broken chord may repeat some of the notes from the chord and span one or more octaves. An arpeggio () is a type of broken chord, in which the notes that compose a chord are played ...

, often run through echo pedals, which spiral off into

infinity Infinity is that which is boundless, endless, or larger than any natural number. It is often denoted by the infinity symbol . Since the time of the ancient Greeks, the philosophical nature of infinity was the subject of many discussions amo ...

with breathtaking effect." Tracks like "Format & Journey North" utilize samples taken from

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

. Describing the musical template of ''Rifts'', ''

'' stated that "some will hear 80s soundtrack music, cosmic ambiance, or

minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...

repetition, while others might pick up on the mishmash of noise and plastic, mystical new age music." Critic

Simon Reynolds Simon Reynolds (born 19 June 1963) is an English music journalist and author who began his professional career on the staff of ''Melody Maker'' in the mid-1980s. He has since gone on to freelance and publish a number of full-length books on music ...

described these releases as involving "rippling arpeggiations, sweet melodies offset by sour dissonance, grid-like structures struggling with cloudy amorphousness."

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

wrote that "many of the song titles here feel like they could be the names of forgotten classics of '70s and '80s

sci-fi Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universe ...

films and literature." The track "Emil Cioran" is named after Romanian philosopher and pessimist

Emil Cioran Emil Mihai Cioran (, ; 8 April 1911 – 20 June 1995) was a Romanian philosopher, aphorist and essayist, who published works in both Romanian and French. His work has been noted for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, style, and aphorisms. H ...

, who Lopatin described as "one of my top dogs."

Release

The 2009 edition of ''Rifts'' sold out its initial 2,000-unit pressing, far beyond expectations, and "propelled Lopatin to underground-star status." In 2012, it was reissued in an expanded 3-CD/5-LP edition on

Mexican Summer Mexican Summer is an independent record label founded in 2009 by Keith Abrahamsson and Andres Santo Domingo. Based in Brooklyn, New York, the label has released recordings from artists including Best Coast, Kurt Vile, Ariel Pink, Allah-Las, W ...

and Lopatin's own Software label, including additional tracks and alternate sequencing. The 2012 LP version collects the bonus tracks of ''Rifts'' into the compilation albums ''Drawn and Quartered'' and ''The Fall into Time'', which were themselves released separate from the box set in 2013. The 7 bonus tracks on the original version of ''Rifts'' ended up being the contents, in order, of ''Drawn and Quartered''. Despite its underground release, ''Rifts'' received widespread critical praise from a variety of publications. ''

The Quietus ''The Quietus'' is a British online music and pop culture magazine founded by John Doran and Luke Turner. The site is an editorially independent publication led by Doran with a group of freelance journalists and critics. Content ''The Quiet ...

'' located the album in a tradition of "chromed

modernity Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the " ...

and pulp futurism" rooted in the cultural milieu of the 1980s, describing the music as "acting like a cracked mirror refracting the sounds of the past." ''The Line of Best Fit'' described Lopatin's aesthetic as retro-futurist. ''Tiny Mix Tapes'' stated that "the sounds on ''Rifts'' look to past versions of unrealized futures for inspiration," adding that "hearing the record in one sitting is like being in two times and places at once, like watching someone from another decade daydreaming." ''

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, fi ...

'' located a feeling of "dyschronia" in the music, noting an affinity with the contemporaneous "

hypnagogic Hypnagogia is the experience of the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep: the ''hypnagogic'' state of consciousness, during the Sleep onset, onset of sleep. Its opposite state is described as the transitional state from sleep into wakeful ...

" music scene. The publication described the music as "strangely familiar and familiarly strange" and suggested that "much of ''Rifts'' indeed feels like communication technologies carrying on without the influence of anything but themselves and their own mechanical history, surrogate from human involvement." ''Rifts'' placed second in ''

'' magazine's annual critics' poll of the records of the year. Following its 2012 reissue, ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to th ...

'' called the album "an important touchstone" and stated that "the way Lopatin discovered fresh ideas inside of a worn-out genre is an inspiring story for the present age."

Recording and composition

Release

Track listing

2009 edition

2012 CD reissue

2012 vinyl reissue

References