Returnal is the fourth studio album by American electronic musician Daniel Lopatin under the alias Oneohtrix Point Never, released on June 22, 2010 by Mego Records. It develops the synthesizer-based compositions of Lopatin's previous work, while also incorporating elements of noise music and his own processed vocals. The album received positive reviews from critics, and was named among the best albums of 2010 by several publications, including Fact, The Wire, and Tiny Mix Tapes. Background Returnal was recorded and mixed by Lopatin using the programs Goldwave and Multiquence. Most of the material was produced in an air-conditioned room at his parents' house in Massachusetts (credited as "Ridge Valley Digital") from July to August 2009. The album's first song was recorded in Brooklyn. 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. Lopatin described Returnal as a "Rousseau record", saying, "He's a French painter during this exoticism period. They're very interesting, they're not one-to-one depictions of nature, explicitly because he didn't really like or appreciate nature. So I was drawn to that, that's kind of a vibe." He further explained to critic Simon Reynolds, "I wanted to make a world-music record. But make it hyperreal, refracted through not really being in touch with the world. [...] So I'm painting these pictures, not of the actual world, but of us watching that world." Lopatin explained the imagined scenario behind the album's opening track "Nil Admirari": "the mom's sucked into CNN, freaking out about Code Orange terrorist shit, while the kid is in the other room playing Halo 3, inside that weird Mars environment, killing some James Cameron–type predator." 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'." Sherburne described "Nil Admirari" as an "unexpected invocation" of noise music, employing "weeping voice, feedback squeal, synthesizer drones, and overdriven drum blasts" that "combust like a rocket on its launch pad," while The Quietus characterized it as "sort of hurtful: sliced-up aural detritus with no enduring rhythm or melody." Resident Advisor characterized tracks "Describing Bodies" and "Stress Waves" as "almost hymnal."