The new project by ex-Gwei Lo man Dave Henson, the Cambridge-based ASCOLTARE'S "Visceral Vendor" is also the album to launch Tripel Records, a label that aims to bring us the best from the still-fertile territory between electronica and other, perhaps more familiar genres.
And Henson is certainly one of life's keen hybridisers in the Kieran Hebden vein. "Visceral Vendor" presents 16 set-pieces, introduced in typically droll fashion by John Peel as "Ascoltare - textural melodic electronica" and that - in a nutshell - pretty much encapsulates what's going on here.
It's often dummy-throwing stuff, though. From a few of the album's earlier tracks like "Headacres" (akin to an electronic typewriter slowly pegging out) and "Buddypals" (nagging, abstract, fragmented and impossible to get a handle on) you'd get the impression Henson's only interested in glitchy, impenetrable stuff like Aphex Twin and Chris Clark at their most forbidding, while on "Pachinko" and "A Place Of Gathering Excellence" he exasperates by indulging in purely buzzy overloads and real migraine-inducing gear.
On these occasions he does himself no favours at all, yet there is thankfully another side to Henson, where the need for melody is king, and thus "Visceral Vendor" does also conceal a small cache of gems. Early out of the traps, "Spondulix" is much more like it, setting up a tunefully oddball lope that's much more accessible and more reminiscent of balmier merchants such as Pole rather than the gritty Warp people.
Later on, Henson does it again thanks to both "Senor Droolcup" and "Solemn Jets." The former is a potty, far-Eastern influenced exercise, with both Chris Clark and the ghost of Harry Partch hanging over it in terms of influence, while "Solemn Jets" is an intriguing, descending piano piece, with the Martin Hannett-style noises off complementing rather than detracting. Actually, it's not that removed from the kind of thing Vini Reilly might previously have tackled.
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But then, "Visceral Vendor" doesn't stop at purely the good and bad. It also contains the plain crazed. To this end, be amazed by "Kitchen Promises", which is initially very glitchy, but then dubby windows get punched in by strings and what sounds like a droning accordion. However, even this is normal compared with "Ice-Cream Sing", where the tones from an ice cream van get seriously corrupted and pillaged by sheets of electronica. Playfully strange and no mistake.
Ultimately then, "Visceral Vendor" leads you through a complex, but intermittently excellent electronic maze where you catch glimpses of warmer, acoustic vistas if you turn enough corners and shake off the glitchy gear for any length of time. Real empathy doesn't come quickly, but then Henson's Italian moniker Ascoltare means "to listen" when translated and if you have the patience to do just that then you'll eventually be rewarded.
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