AOTW | 1 May – 7 May: Oneohtrix Point Never – Replica
It’s my birthday today! While these AOTWs are chosen due to specific cultural or compositional importance to vaporwave, I’m going to choose one that’s both an excellent example of vaporwave/cyberpunk music and also one of my personal favorites regardless of genre: Replica by Oneohtrix Point Never. OPN’s contribution to vaporwave is visibly recognized in the literal creation of ECCOJAMS via Chuck Person’s eponymous album, but Replica is an album that is just as influential and an immensely successful realization of vaporwave’s tropes and concepts all the way back in 2011, when the genre was arguably just getting its start in a post-FLORAL SHOPPE environment.
Replica is built from a mixture of original music and samples from old television advertisements. The original music is generally cut from similar cloth as that of OPN’s previous progressive electronica albums such as Returnal and Zones without People, albeit with pop music length. Some songs have a glitch-hop aesthetic to them (e.g. “Up” and “Child Soldier”, the latter being one of my favorite tracks in electronic music), and others focus on the ambient/new age side (e.g. “Submersible”). One’s interest in vaporwave notwithstanding, Replica is a fascinating listen for anyone who is interested in modern electronica, in addition to the independent music landscape of the 2010s.
Read the Sunbleach review here, and check out the music below: