The music in Marty Supreme is a central character, one as freewheeling, in-your-face, and unimaginable to withstand as Marty himself. Although the ’80s and its attendant commercialism and sci-fi cheese have at all times been of specific fascination to Lopatin, his earlier Froese-flavored scores solely mirrored the floor shades of his craft. The place his work as Oneohtrix Level By no means has blurred boundaries, his scores have typically leaned extra towards pastiche. However for Marty Supreme, Lopatin meets the larger-than-life movie on its degree, constructing the palette he’s honed through the years right into a totalizing prism of sound.
Lopatin delves into his longtime considerations over media and reminiscence by establishing a lush, time-drunk soundscape that echoes the chintzy Fairlights, DX7s, and Synclaviers of the movie’s pop songs. The arpeggio is as soon as once more the grounding present, and he attracts on the whole lot he’s discovered to do with it since his Rifts days. New-agey R Plus Seven flutes chirp via the iridescent romance of “The Name” and “The Apple,” earlier than “Endo’s Recreation” brings Marty’s excessive plummeting down with the darkish, throbbing bass of Backyard of Delete. “Holocaust Honey” reinterprets Constance Demby’s “Novus Pt. 2: The Flying Bach” as a circus of spiralling organs, strings, and choirs, blowing up a dreamily haunting flashback to Koyaanisqatsi proportions. If Lopatin has more and more pushed his solo music right into a extra over-the-top, dramatized mode through the years (with the refreshing exception of this yr’s mellow Tranquilizer), all that theatricality lastly finds an excellent outlet right here, lifting the fabric to grandiose and otherworldly locations.
Because the story of Marty Supreme traverses nations, Lopatin’s rating follows go well with. With Japan standing in the way in which of Marty’s quest to say American dominance in desk tennis, Lopatin weaves in motifs paying homage to the nation’s personal colourful historical past of digital music. The pompous bouncing-ball stomp of “Marty’s Dream” and “Pure Pleasure” recall Yasuaki Shimizu’s traditional Music for Commercials, whereas the fluttering, Midori Takada-like marimbas of “Motherstone” come topped with sax and fretless bass straight off an outdated Prism document. These mallet devices regularly reappear all through the soundtrack, offering a ricochet that carries the movie via its many white-knuckling escalations (in a Q&A for the movie, Lopatin spoke of drawing particular inspiration upon realizing the instrument additionally consists of a ball and a stick—identical to desk tennis).
