Electric Light Orchestra - Time

ELO swapped strings for synthesizers and the present day for the future on Time, a 1981 concept album pressed here on 140-gram vinyl with a download card.

Jeff Lynne built the record around a man from the eighties who finds himself stranded in the year 2095, longing for the life and the love he left behind. Recorded mostly at Musicland in Munich, it marked a sharp turn away from the lush orchestral sound of Out of the Blue and Discovery toward gleaming electronics and robotic vocal effects, without losing Lynne's gift for a Beatles-sized melody.

Twilight bursts out of the gate with racing vocals and cascading hooks, a song that later found a second life in Japanese anime fandom. Yours Truly, 2095 introduces a futuristic love interest in the form of a robot companion, and Ticket to the Moon is a sweeping, melancholy ballad of escape. Hold On Tight, a rockabilly-flavoured stomp, became the album's big hit single.

Here Is the News and 21st Century Man fill out the tale with paranoia and longing.

The album has gathered a cult following among retro-futurism fans over the years, and it plays beautifully as a single, start-to-finish story, best heard with the lights down and the volume up.