Zones Without People

Brooklyn synth wizard Daniel Lopatin aka Oneohtrix Point Never toiled long in the trenches of the noise scene before eventually breaking through to international acclaim with his glowing 2009 compilation Rifts. Rifts gathered together the best excerpts from an already lengthy discography of small-release cassettes and other lesser releases, the likes of which Lopatin would continue to spit out even as accolades continued to come his way. One such release was 2009's Zones Without People, a highly limited LP release for the Arbor label. All seven compositions on Zones Without People appeared in some form on the massive Rifts collection, and the druggy, dreamy synth tones of the album helped build OPN's reputation as a more noise-derived disciple of Boards of Canada's take on subaquatic synth tones and vortex-forming walls of ambient sound. ~ Fred Thomas