This article was first published in the January 2016 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.

To listen to NZCA Lines -- aka Michael Lovett -- is like coming into contact with the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey and falling into a musical black hole. "I've always been into science fiction," says the London-based musician, 28. "And I'm interested in making music that tells a story."

NZCA Lines's self-titled debut from 2012 took its cues from postmodern thinkers such as Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges. Recorded in his bedroom, it earned rave reviews and comparisons with Cliff Martinez and Metronomy. But for new album Infinite Summer he took the sci-fi influences even further. "I was reading Asimov, Clifford Simak and Arthur C Clarke," he says.

He constructed an entire narrative for the album, based around the future city of Cairo-Athens, set on a far-future Earth threatened by the collapsing Sun. He partnered with musicians Charlotte Hatherley (Ash/Bat For Lashes) and Sarah Jones (Hot Chip) to record a "wider, louder" sound - even if much of the album was still produced in the same bedroom. The result: an mix of sci-fi and Moog synths. Think Interstellarsoundtracked by Daft Punk.

His track, "New Atmosphere", for example, is a love story about the hero falling for a terraforming scientist. For the video, which Lovett directed, he created Cairo-Athenian architecture in design software SketchUp. He also created the effects, simulating blossoming clouds in a fish tank. "You just inject double cream into water," he says.

This helps to create music that asks questions in between beats. "When you know the world is going to be destroyed in 200 years, what do people do?" he laughs. "It's a funky apocalypse situation."

Infinite Summer is out on January 22 through Memphis Industries

This article was originally published by WIRED UK