Atmosphere - Talk Talk EP [CD]

The title of the previous Atmosphere album, So Many Other Realities Exist Simultaneously, evokes the multiversal storytelling that's recently vaulted into the mainstream consciousness. Now with their latest effort, the irrepressible Talk Talk EP, Slug and Ant dart across space-time to grab hold of the timeline where they became titans of the electro-rap that was foundational to their youths. Evoking artists like Kraftwerk and Egyptian Lover, Atmosphere makes decades old visions of the future seem new once again.

The genesis of the Talk Talk EP was in recording a track of the same name for their So Many Other Realities album. The "Talk Talk" song exists alongside electro classics, at once vaguely alien and deeply human. Enamored with its outcome, Slug and Ant returned for a longer exploration of the sound, to mesmeric results.

For all its well-documented roots in disco and R&B, rap's connection to the electronic music of the 1970s and '80s is a core part of its DNA. The Talk Talk EP is one of the clearest articulations of this truth to emerge in many years, a testament to the communal power of programmed sound.