[Smalltown Supersound]

Last year, the Norwegian producer Terje Olsen released Ragysh, his biggest record since 2005’s Eurodans. Its two anthemic singles — the title track and “Snooze 4 Love” — were virtually unavoidable, and with good reason, as few others managed to reach their levels of end-of-the-night euphoria. The question of whether he’d take as long to match its highs has been swiftly deflated, as he’s already back with a record that’s somehow even more blissful.

It’s The Arps was reportedly made exclusively with an ARP 2600, and each track has a crisp, bright sheen as a result. On lead single “Inspector Norse,” Terje capitalizes on the machine’s potential for disco squiggles; the track grows from a bubbly prance to a pinnacle that’s bursting with so much energy it seems impossible to overstate — it would be difficult to sound any more convivial. And so on the remainder, Terje doesn’t really attempt to. “Myggsommer” tones things down with an exercise in space-age bachelor pad exotica, before the record concludes with the epic, two-part “Swing Star.” Where “Inspector Norse” makes its exuberance apparent immediately, “Swing Star” builds measuredly from fluttering, free-floating arpeggios into pumping disco-house, its rhythm a skittering, slippery groove. In a way it recalls the proggy expanses of his contemporary Lindstrøm, but there’s also a kind of lucid, cyclical funk at play that reminds of Heatsick’s Intersex LP. The record’s title might cheekily suggest that the machines are doing all the work, but its sheer fluidity indicates that Terje has in fact achieved a mastery over them.