Fans of Pole are likely to be pleased, but fans of Warp Records are likely to be left bemoaning the absence of all the usual high-concepts associated with Post-Rock and its albatross carrying anti-heroes. But who cares?
The Cambridge-based Ascoltare is the new project dreamt up by ex-Gwei Lo man Dave Henson and its also the first album to be launched on Tripel Records, a label that intends to bring us the very best of grooveless, oddball, spaceage electronica.
One thing is for sure, “Visceral Vendor“ is a sixteen-track long static swerve ball of genuinely testing ‘headacres’. John Peel, who introduces the album says of it, ‘Ascoltare – textural melodic electronica’ and there’s not a great deal more you could add in all honesty. Jarring, ad-hoc rhythms comprise the greater part of it, whilst turdy, parping and tapping noises make up the rest. To call it soulless would be wide of the mark, but it’s certainly not an album that plays to the heart (although the jaunty and oriental ‘Ice-Cream Sing’ does kick up a few vagaries of childhood lost).
Whilst cold and peculiar (‘Headcres’, ‘Buddypals’ and ‘Senor Drollcup’) Visceral Vendor is not without it’s warmth, but it’s the warmth of a bare and fractal universe of dust and colliding debris. A shapeless, elemental, digital and childlike warmth may describe it better. And we all know how heartless and peculiar children are.
Best of the bunch? ‘Solemn Jets’. Clanking school piano with paint and potato cheeriness. A veritable nostalgia trip indeed.
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