UK producer Ben Williams, aka Gatto Fritto, makes exploratory, downright jammy electronic music. His self-titled debut is the sound of someone mining every nook and cranny of his influences for a few really specific sounds: the weird warmth of Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder's chintzy propulsion, Detroit techno's stalwart intensity, and the goofball sprawl of soundtrack-era Tangerine Dream.
"Invisible College", the boldest and longest track, begins with urgent acoustic guitar, then slowly piles on hand-claps, dance percussion, and whining synthesizers before shifting into a melodramatic breakdown thanks to very Doors-like organs. Then, the feverish guitar floats back into the mix, the laid-back L.A. vibes subside, and the track nervously starts all over again, rebuilding itself and shuffling along for another five minutes.
Most of the album reflects this wandering approach to composition. The obliquely catchy "The Curse" and "Hex" are followed by "Grinding of the Brakes", an atmospheric groove that could've come from the soundtrack to Michael Mann's Thief. That song's moody rhythmic energy is derailed for the slow-growing hum of "Solar Flares Burn For You", which is subsequently pushed to the side for "Lucifer Morning Star", a pulsing track with a woozy vocoded refrain similar to "The Curse" and "Hex". The most focused songs end the album: "My Etheric Body" is based around breakdance rhythms, and "Beachy Head" hypnotically builds, giving its undivided attention to moving forward like a proper dance single.
The songs here are either epic, cosmic disco work-outs like "Invisible College" ("Grinding of the Brakes", "Beachy Head") or Balearic pop with vocals ("The Curse", "Hex", "Lucifer Morning Star", and "My Etheric Body"). The one song that doesn't fit into either category, "Solar Flares Burn For You", is placed right in the middle of the album. Proper sequencing would stick the singing tracks on one side of this slow-growing ambient track, and the space funk on the other. Instead, the songs are all shuffled around, giving the album an unpredictable, searching energy. The kinder word for what's going on here is probably "improvising," but "jamming," though totally uncool, is just a lot more appropriate: Improv connotes constant thinking and rearranging while jamming suggests an intuitive, lost-in-the-music attempt at transcendence.
