Daniel Lopatin’s recent work as Oneohtrix Point Never has earned him a deserved reputation as a noisemaker. The digital heavy metal (or “hypergrunge,” as he called it) of his 2015 album Garden of Delete was an earsplitting world away from dulcet tracks like “Hyperdawn” or “Sleep Dealer.” But on a new OPN rework of “andata,” the opening song from Ryuichi Sakamoto’s 2017 album async, the tables are turned. The bulk of the track is actually much quieter than the Japanese composer’s original, in which a stately organ melody bristles with distortion and piercing feedback briefly morphs into what sounds like a squealing dial-up modem.

Taking the opposite tack, Lopatin transposes the melody as a spare, searching piano prelude—what sounds like a tribute to the gentle nature of Sakamoto recordings like Playing the Piano—wrapped in sheets of reverb and plucked tones. It’s only midway through that he lights off some of his characteristic fireworks, unleashing a volley of buzzing synth as rounded and clear as weaponized tears. And then, that sentimental peak having been reached, he dials back the intensity, letting the soft, sad keys and harps usher us quietly out. It’s a remarkably emotive showing for Lopatin, an artist so self-aware that his last album’s elaborate backstory came complete with an array of fake historical blog posts backdated all the way to 1994. For once, he wears his heart on his “nihilist/formalist” sleeve, and he wears it beautifully.