Speculator is not “some dick in a basement”, according to record label Underwater Peoples, who release his second album ‘Nice’. We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but only because he’s released an intriguing album of cut and paste beauty, founded on a love of the 80s.

‘Nice’, according to the artist, remains completely un-edited, and retains a scratchy quality, as intended. Made in the spirit of the mixtape, random noises and neglected segments of other unheard songs infiltrate the tracks, revealing themselves unexpectedly.

The unpredictable element could become annoying to listeners under a certain age, but will appeal to anyone with a finely-tuned sense of nostalgia and appreciation of all things analogue. Remember that feeling of excitement finding an old compilation on tape and having an exploratory listen? You’ll find it here.

At the heart of the record, however, is Speculator’s love of lo-fi, indie and 80s cool. ‘Century Select’ sounds like Joy Division if they were fans of surfing (allow yourself a moment to imagine Ian Curtis on a surfboard) as a throbbing beat drives along scuzzy, droning guitars, while ‘Jenny Says’ carries a flash of punk swagger, simultaneously sounding like a scorched version of some 80s one-hit wonder.

What starts off as a fantastic odyssey of sound soon struggles for ideas as the record relies too much on droning waves of sound. It becomes directionless. ‘Display Mood’ and ‘(It’s On) Every Channel’ carry a jarring sense of menace but, ultimately, amount to nothing, while ‘F.E.R.G.I.E’ remains a fairly pointless piece of brooding, building synths.

At its best, ‘Nice’ is at once shamelessly throwaway yet well-considered. It’s just a shame the album peters out because the first half promises so much. Still, there is a tremendous sense of invention throughout and the record carries an endless sense of wonder.

-Jack Prescott-