Sintemu: Travel Gum
Electronic Eel Records

Travel Gum serves up thirty-one minutes of poppy electronic music from Sintemu aka Sergio Longhitano of Milano, Italy. The release's seven vibrant tunes feature no shortage of busy drum machine beats and blissful synth melodies in that clean and polished Solvent style we've come to know and love, and the material deftly works in a bit of B. Fleischmann-styled melancholy too. “Breeze” moves the album into minimal synth-funk territory while the swizzling swing of drum machines power the bleepy stutter of “Travel Gum.” The laid-back swing of “Disappoint” is strongly reminiscent of Plaid, the percolating “Elektrodream” by contrast charges determinedly, and “Zen” ends the EP on a woozy and bleepy note. Though pianist and producer Longhitano only established the project in 2006, it appears to have progressed rapidly judging by the expert handling of display here; for one thing, the songs are intricately plotted but not so much so that they suffer from overkill—the kind of thing one expects a more experienced hand to deliver.

June 2008