Daniel Lopatin began releasing experimental and ambient electronic music under the Oneohtrix Point Never persona back in 2007 and, since then, has consistently been producing enigmatic and interesting work. Good Time is the latest example of this, a recent winner of the Cannes Soundtrack Award for its part in the critically-acclaimed heist movie from the Safdie brothers. With the movie out in the UK this weekend, it is the perfect timing for the release of this thrilling and breathlessly inventive album.

As icy synths extend their tendrils across the soundscape before building into a paranoid and urgent rhythm, the soundtrack channels Vangelis’ classic Blade Runner score. The opening title track is instantly unsettling, with pained vocals emerging out of the gloom seeming to call wordlessly for help. Without having to know the plot of the film, the listener is plunged into the emotions and fears of life on the run. As with most independent movie scores at the moment, Drive is a major touchstone, with elements of The Terminator and Stranger Things in the mix too. However, it avoids becoming just another generic 80s-styled synthesiser soundtrack, as Lopatin’s experimental side elevates it into something unique. Rather than using dialogue in the Tarantino ‘highlights’ style, snatches from the film are sampled and distorted, becoming half-heard snippets of conversation. By not making it fully understood it adds to the panicky feeling of the album, where nothing is clear or straightforward. Underneath, the synth keyboard rhythm drives everything relentlessly forwards.

Lopatin throws the listener off their stride by utilising different styles throughout, whether it be ‘Bail Bonds’ use of guitar clattering into the synths, or the ambient mood of ‘Ray Wakes Up’ being abruptly snapped by samples of police sirens in the following track. What this all builds to is a fully immersive mood piece, always subtly shifting away into something else just before it can be defined or pigeon-holed. As penultimate track ‘Connie’ builds to a huge crescendo before descending into a beautiful ambient piece, all that is left is the mountain-like shape of Iggy Pop who features on the final track ‘The Pure and the Damned’. With a voice that sounds like it has been carved from the very foundations of the earth, he delivers an almost spoken-word finale over a simple piano and ambient synth movement. After all of the paranoid chaos that precedes it, he implores: “Love, make me clean / Death, make me brave” – it is simply stunning and leaves no hair not on end.

As a standalone piece of music, Good Time dodges the problem that movie scores can sometimes suffer from as it can still be enjoyed without needing to have watched the film itself. With only a handful of tracks acting as cues, the vast majority of the score are fully formed, interesting pieces. The only problem with this album is the question of just how many people are in the market for a constantly unsettling album of electronic mood music. The soundtracks to Drive and Stranger Things became cultural touchpoints, but it’s questionable whether their impact would have been the same without the mass hysteria surrounding the film and the Netflix show. The critical response to Good Time has been so strong, it can be hoped that Lopatin’s work goes the same way.

Jamie MacMillan

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