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Enjoy This Bottomless, Gorgeous New Track from Tim Hecker and Oneohtrix Point Never's Daniel Lopatin

“Intrusions,” the album’s second single, is as much of a more-than-the-sum-of composition as you might hope for, the sort of piece that gets right at the infinite space that’s inherent but less often realized in computer music.

What’s that? You didn’t know that two of the brightest brains in post-everything electronic music were working together on a record? So happens they are and said record, Instrumental Tourist, is out later this month on Software Recordings. “Intrusions,” the album’s second single, is as much of a more-than-the-sum-of composition as you might hope for, the sort of piece that gets right at the infinite space that’s inherent but less often realized in computer music. It’s a collision of pallets in a way — soaring sound fields and junkyard synth zags — but it’s more like a collision of galaxies, with planets and stars shooting over and around each other, but arcing back inward into brand new and unlikely gravitational dances. Indeed, sometimes they smash into each other too.

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Here’s a chunk of relevant PR that came in the mail this morning, accompanying “Intrusions”

The studio meetings between Hecker and Lopatin were conducted to mimic the tropes and techniques of jazz-based improvisation, with little preparation prior. In an era where electronic production can produce the totalities of symphonic effect, and solo sound composition is easier than ever, the necessity of collaborative work is questioned. Could their own respective artistic pursuits be neatly compiled and encapsulated by the very sound bank paradigm that they’ve exploited? Why work together at all?

You can here that whiff of improv well-enough above, but it’s also clear by the end that that final galactic meeting wouldn’t be the same otherwise.

Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.