If you’re looking to feel unsettled, Garden of Delete will have no problem achieving that. Experimental electronic artist Oneohtrix Point Never, aka Daniel Lopatin, throws us into the deep end of his music in this 8th LP – an album often so disjointed and abrasive that it works. Garden of Delete shifts between musical ideas and intensities so abruptly, it makes the harsh in-your-face electronica even more stunning.

Oneohtrix Point Never blurs the line between real and synthetic, warping and distorting guitar lines, pipe organs and vocal samples to the point of being indistinguishable, shown immediately in the unnerving ‘Intro’. Throwbacks to Daniel Lopatin’s vaporwave music in eerie ambient segues like ‘ECCOJAMC1’. Even the more ambient tracks still murmur with unease. Massive atmospheres from soft electronica are cut through with buzzing synth leads and fuzzes in ‘Child of Rage’, ‘No Good’ and ‘Animals’, yet bring a much needed cohesion to this record.

The album’s longest track ‘Mutant Standard’ is the biggest abuser of ambient noise – bordering the harsh – in an attempt to tie together the track’s rampant electronic beats and melodies. Its erraticism makes the eight-minute track fall under its own weight however, as short-lived developments in the countless motifs presented makes you sit and wonder what could have been.

But where Garden of Delete finds a balance between order and chaos, especially in ‘Sticky Drama’ and ‘Erza’, is where the album really shines. Oneohtrix Point Never succeeds in shocking his audience with an electronic album at his most experimental, but shocks them either for better or for worse.

Jekabs Jursins