Artificial System have teamed up with Atlanta-based musician, Christopher Lamp, for a new E.P. that’s very different musically from the label’s previous outing. Where Living In Timeless Space was all dystopian Sci-Fi “techno”, Our Time, instead, is uber Balearic. 

Chris provides guitars and vocals on two pieces written while he was travelling through Peru. AS’ Sanjay handles the beats and production. Sermon Of The Jungle, is a shimmering wall of cicadas and 6-string atmospherics, while the title track is a marvellous mix of post-Soul II Soul shuffle and folk / protest song. Its drums slowly, dramatically crashing – Chris strumming, and bottle-neck sliding – like some forgotten `80s pop / rock anthem. Dark, and a little bit moody, gothic even, it reminds me a little of The Neville Brothers’ Sons And Daughters (a Soft Rocks favourite), and it would have slotted right into a set at a Fascinations / Downham Tavern all-dayer, circa 1988 / 1989. It’s the sort of epic stuff that the assembled “on one” South London working class boys and girls went barmy for. 

KM Editions / Pleasure Unit’s Kenny Wisdom and mysterious dub-disco don, Frank Milan, get together for a vocal, and instrumental, remix – extending the original out from 5 to 11 minutes plus. Adding an intro of whistling winds, echoed sonar blips, ambient rumblings and rustlings, polishing Chris’ glistening guitar virtuosity, teasing you for a full 4  before dropping those drums. The serene soundscape, rocked and shocked by sound effect eruptions, and the arrangement building, climbing, its deft dynamics drawing you in. Frank and Kenny totally tapping into the track’s potential. It’s emotional undertow packing a punch like pre-Spirit Of Eden Talk Talk and / or The Waterboys’ This Is The Sea. It’s lyric a call for a focus on something higher, something that will lead us back to where we began. Its promised land a pure pagan place. Monumental, it deserves to be massive. 

Christopher Lamp & Artificial System’s Our Time is available now, on Bandcamp.