The Cosmologist has previously dropped four platters of left of centre, cosmically collectable records, but they like to take their time. Vol. 1 was released in 2012, and it’s been a couple of years since these space travellers have visited this planet. Those in the know will probably have them all, I am pretty sure I recall Dave Jarvis flogging me a couple of these space cruisers in Love Vinyl back in his day there. Had the Governor still been in residence in his South London studio, I would certainly have been tip toeing this round there with this. For the fifth outing on Under The Influence Records, the highly skilled surgeons dig deep into the crates of rare gems, oddities, and obscurities to bring us this shiny new Volume 5. Does anybody know who they actually are?

In the unobservable reaches of the universe The Cosmologist sit, surrounded by 12-inch vinyl artifacts found on a tiny planet in another galaxy called earth. Sci-fi sonic scalpels in hands, they get to work on two treasures from a bygone era. The A is a rare 1980’s UK new wave whirlwind, given a drum-focused reconstruction aimed directly at the dancefloor, and the B an afrobeat masterpiece that gets an expert interplanetary rework.

Dusting off the original promo sheet, it states that the A side ‘Spin Dub’, in its former life, entered Balearic folklore as a much-loved Rampling secret weapon at Shoom! Unlike any other record of that era, it features LSD-soaked drums, a barnstorming bassline and a piano riff that wouldn’t be out of place on a Severed Heads cut, finetuned and re-crafted with that space age touch. On the B side ‘Water’ is a magical afrobeat rhythm steeped in history whose spirit and style has traversed decades, dancefloors, and galaxies. It’s an exploration of a great, reworked and recalibrated with extra-terrestrial resonations.