(Independent/MGM Distribution)

What better time than election year for Sydney-based howard to release his debut album Intermental Music + Collage? With the electronic music scene now shattered into a thousand and one subcultures, this pastiche picks up the pieces and tries to make the electronica that we’d hear in a world without genres.

But howard arrives perhaps a little late on the scene to transcend subcultures. The Avalanches, Lemonjelly, and a number of other masters of the musical melange have already attracted a following that is a subculture itself.

Then again, there is nothing inherently wrong with belonging to a genre. It is much like belonging to a family and Intermental Music + Collage is shaping up to be a promising newborn bearing the most attractive family features.

The opening track Jill 100 nods in the direction of hip-hop, the scene that probably first highlighted the intertextuality of music through sampling and cutting. Although it has no lyric, memories stretching all the way back to the 1980s are evoked.

The comparisons with Lemonjelly are unavoidable in South Guiteur. A bed of drum patterns and a simple bassline lie just below guitar licks while strings soar high above. The serene bowing of Cath Ellis, bounced to produce a violin ensemble, makes this a standout track.

howard’s love affair with strings continues in Big Beat Driver and Guitar Hero, but with a subtly rock feel in the latter. Acoustic and synth strings are what often carries the melody in many of the tracks.

On the electronica tip, Chase shows hints of Ken Ishii through its fuzzy samples and almost-breakbeat rhythm. Na soon after sees Kraftwerk or Afrika Bambaataa morphing into perhaps The Chemical Brothers. I don’t know, maybe it’s just my imagination.

The music of the East does not escape homage in The Duck Herding Song and Clock On Drugs. These two tracks see howard making his contribution to the fusion of Eastern rhythms with Western melodies.

Does this new music that mines the past for inspiration still result in something original? You will get your chance to cast your vote when howard tours with a seven-piece band in June and July.

Intermental Music + Collage is out now through MGM Distribution.