La Jovenc - Perverse or Polymorphous

Mr Giovanni 'La Jovenc' Dal Monte has a reputation as a music maker's music maker, mixing up electronica and trip hop with avant-garde sounds and odd textures. The Italian producer and soundtrack artist (his work can be heard on films by infamous queer director Bruce LaBruce) creates a sound world which mixes film noir swing with chattering, chopped-up vocals and acid beats, stream-of-consciousness lyrics with body-popping synth pop. His thick Italian vowels lend an extra seedy film to his monologues on 'Love of My Life' and 'Fat Slut Scot Mod', vignettes on high times among the low-life.

Most of Perverse or Polymorphous is a fun listen but there's nothing about the production which makes is sound rather flat, and just a little cheap despite the often inventive mixing of genres. It's also hard not to feel as if Dal Monte is something of a dilettante whose main concern is amusing himself rather than putting together an cohesive piece of music. The shredded, echoing Sicilian folk on 'Tanger-Algeciras' is an unusual sound but Dal Monte takes it precisely nowhere over the next four minutes. This unfinished feeling really detracts from your enjoyment on tracks such as 'Come in from Out of the Rain', where the griminess of the electro beat doesn't seem entirely confected but is the product of lax production techniques.

Ultimately, however highly La Jovenc may be thought of in some circles (Barry Adamson, composer of soundtracks for several David Lynch films, and avant-garde composer, John Zorn are fans), this is music which fails to hold one's attention. Dal Monte definitely has talent but Perverse or Polymorphous, despite several interesting moments, doesn't do much to show it off.