Get set to jump in the wayback machine, and put to rest any silly notions that indie pop's Eighties fixation was a thing of the past. Afar - the debut from Ice Choir, a project that Depreciation Guild/Pains of Being Pure at Heart's Kurt Feldman has been talking about for some time now - in fact doubles down on the decade. Whereas many of the electro-pop purveyors of the past five years who borrow from the synth-loving sounds of the Reagan/Thatcher era do so with some degree of subtlety, Ice Choir goes for it unabashedly. 

From Feldman's honey-coated opening vocals on "I Want You Now and Always", it's bring on the images of Smash Hits, Spandau Ballet, Johnny Hates Jazz, early MTV, George Michael et al. While there are other elements of play -- Feldman's love of J-pop and Romance poetry, for instance, and isolation, self-imposed and otherwise -- it's the production of Afar that sticks with you, a sound that Feldman tells us in this week's Face Time was quite intentional.  

Of particular appeal: the bouncing, twinkling title track, the dreamy "Two Rings" and "Peacock in the Tall Grass"'s sweet lilt.  If you were around and consuming music in 1987, Ice  Choir's debut will take you there in an instant. If you weren't, this record is a gateway drug to a very specific time and place.