Returnal (album)

Returnal was recorded and mixed by Lopatin using the programs Goldwave and Multiquence. Instruments including the Akai AX60, the Roland Juno-60, the Roland MSQ-700 and the Korg Electribe ES-1 as well as voice parts by Lopatin are present throughout the album, although the Roland SP-555 and Sherman Filterbank were also used in the development process. The cover art for Returnal was photographed by Yelena Avanesova and designed by Stephen O'Malley. ==Composition==

Resident Advisor noted that the album begins in "comic assault mode—the crude tangles of noise, serrated drum machines and vocal screams of 'Nil Admirari'." Resident Advisor characterized tracks "Describing Bodies" and "Stress Waves" as "almost hymnal." The album's title track is a "mournful ballad" which "buries Lopatin's pitch-shifted vocals into a disorienting forest-haunt." Both Simon Reynolds and Kiran Sande of Fact noted occasional similarities between the album and Jon Hassell's concept of fourth world music. Reynolds described closing track "Preyouandi" as "a shatteringly alien terrain made largely out of glassy percussion sounds, densely clustered cascades fed through echo and delay. On first listen, I pictured an ice shelf disintegrating, a beautiful, slow-motion catastrophe, [...] it's still the sort of music that gets your mind's eye reeling with fantastical imagery." Fact described the album's sound as "a psychedelia more earthbound than cosmic", calling it "music driven by an ecological rather than a narrative impulse, more interested in testing the limits of space rather than telling stories within it." ==Critical reviews==

Resident Advisor stated that "Returnal feels like a document as dazed and dizzy as heatstroke, the other-state peace of dehydration or exhaustion. But its emotional terrain is in constant flux—if, thankfully, slow to evolve—full of transitions and almost sullen mood-swings that make it, at various points, entrancing, bewitching and often quite perplexing." The publication stated that "Returnal still seems like a lock for record of the year in a throwback genre expanding beyond cassette-collectors and Brain Records lovers." Pitchforks Philip Sherburne noted Returnal to be more focused, thick and composite than Lopatin's past work, noting that when the synthesized arpeggios common in his previous releases do come up, they are "layered and blurred to the point of losing their definition." Comparing Returnal with Lopatin's previous works, Tiny Mix Tapes described the album as "not just a collection of tracks but an indivisible and cohesive whole, held in place this time not by grids and zones but by atmospheres and plumes." ==Accolades==

The song "Ouroboros" was later featured on The Bling Ring soundtrack, which Lopatin also worked on. ==Track listing==

All tracks written and produced by Daniel Lopatin. ==Personnel==

Credits adapted from liner notes. • Daniel Lopatin – music • Al Carlson – tape-op, additional engineering • James Plotkin – mastering • Stephen O'Malley – design • Yelena Avanesova – photography ==References==