A ? of WHEN

Formerly one half of Spacemen 3 alongside Spiritualized’s Jason Pierce, Pete ‘Sonic Boom’ Kember mixed Animal Collective singer Noah ‘Panda Bear’ Lennox’s 2011 solo album Tomboy before co-producing 2015’s Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper. Their space cadet meeting of minds fully came together, however, on 2022’s superb Reset, the pair using samples from Kember’s collection of old 50s and 60s 45s to fashion a retro-futuristic time machine to travel to an alternative past where Brian Wilson had called up Telstar producer Joe Meek to complete his psychedelic opus, Smile. Following Adrian Sherwood remix LP Reset In Dub in 2023, A ? Of WHEN is the pair’s follow-up proper. The palette is broader this time around – see the inspired use of steel drums on Lucky Charms and Pray To You’s lonesome cowboy stylings, while harpist Mary Lattimore adds beatific reverie to Something Like A Dream’s laser beam drone rock – and the sonic vista wider, but as it continues to expand, the universe the duo have built only becomes more inviting.