Pukka prose by Patrick Syms.

Love surrounds this second release from Oswego Music. The label was set up last year by Lovehandles. The first release included his masterful reworking of a love-themed 80s mega-hit. Now the label’s second release is the debut from an enigmatic knob twiddler sometimes known as Love From The Archipelago. That’s a whole lot of love.

It’s also evident in the music itself. Edits have a long and storied history. Today, practitioners arguably fall into two broad categories: the lazy ones who simply quantise the time slippy original and slap on a bovine 4/4 kick drum; and those that treat the source material with love and reverence in an attempt to create something a little different, something greater than the sum of its parts. Love From The Archipelago sits squarely in this last group.

The vinyl-only “Rework” EP comprises five very different tracks. According to the press one-sheet, the artist is “a musical nomad who divides his time between the mountains of Europe and the remote islands of Paradise.” Despite their differences, all five tracks would work beautifully at the latter, during a woozy afternoon on a tropical beach, mojito and paperback in hand or perhaps prompting a languid, slightly inebriated sway beside a pool. It opens at its most energetic – but ALFOS-approved – pace and slowly decelerates from track to track, the sun and alcohol gently taking their combined effect.

The first cut is a bouncy piece of 80s synth pop, the “Endless Ocean” of the title underscored by added seagull squawks and the sound of waves lapping our fictional beach. It could have been cheesy but it’s handled subtly. We slow slightly as track 2, “Carica”, takes us to South America for a dose of sugary Brazilian jazz funk from the same decade. Side B opens with “En Route”, a loan from the library, a chuggy foundation of yoyo-ing bass synth and electric guitar that’s soon joined by various squelchy synth voices. Slower still is “Grains Of Sand“, a melancholic chunk of electronic-tinged, American folk rock.

Closing up the EP is what might be the beginnings of an Oswego tradition. Like the first release, we end with a thin slice of spoken word over a music sample. A skit. This time around, and in keeping with the paradisiacal island theme, we have “1-900-Isla”. A wise old voice intones a meditative monologue about a secret place somewhere between a dream and reality, “caught in the rhythms of the islands, in the rhythm of timelessness.” Beneath it is a hazy, hallucinatory loop of 60s psych-pop. It’s ninety-nine seconds of simplicity, almost perfect in its unity of theme and vibe and a fitting close to a well-crafted release.

Love From The Archipelago’s “Reworks” EP can be ordered from Juno.