Ben Williams – aka Gatto Fritto, which, while we’re at it, is aka “fried cat” – has been dishing out a generous blend of house and prog for some years now, blessing the switched-on few with singles that each explore the distant reaches of dance in their own way, but stay sweetly accessible as they do it. Cool and catchy. The magic has stuck with Williams long enough to conjure a debut album that takes outrageous liberties with our tolerance for chin-stroking muso melody because it knows it has the charm to get away with it. So you get 10-minute, show-off, synth-funk workouts that feel like compact pop hits. Super.

By and large the titles are unforgivable – at best, ‘Solar Flares Burn For You’ and ‘Lucifer Morning Star’ sound like fancy labels for Fuck Buttons explorations; at worst, you suspect Steve Hillage is involved – but the trick is to let names and, indeed, indulgent synth waves wash over you. ‘Invisible College’ may suggest a particularly humdrum instalment of The X Files, but it turns out to be a disco-laser-adorned Spanish guitar mantra with the power to transport you to a chemically hazy Ibizan dawn. ‘Beachy Head’ implies the album’s ending on a (plummeting) downer; instead it flutters its way up and down the ambient synth scales, blissfully Orb-like in its pretty drift. Don’t judge a book by its cover then. We knew this, but it’s always fun to be confounded.

Dance music remains reflexive, however. If it’s not reminders of The Orb, it’s elements of disco, acid and a forever-80s brand of synth-rock that alert the déjà vu sensors here. ‘The Curse’’s shimmering techno revives Simple Minds’ pre-pomp anthem ‘Theme For Great Cities’, and there’s something about ‘Lucifer Morning Star’ – with its self-assured synth chords, vocodered verses and marimba fills – that could only feel natural soundtracking Tom Cruise gazing moodily across the city at twilight after his wingman cops an untimely demise. By the same token, Vangelis could’ve orchestrated the creepy sci-fi unease of ‘Solar Flares Burn For You’ and, um, Jan Hammer might’ve had a hand in ‘The Hex’’s electronic hall of mirrors, its shag-pile sound built to skirt Miami’s shoreline.

The reference points aren’t desperately hip, clearly, but they underscore a certain sophistication. Gatto Fritto, the album, feels classy – whether that class is ersatz or the real, glittering deal – and in pretension or sincerity it’s a barrel-load of fun. There’s not much of a message, what with vocals either too buried, too treated or too not there, but variety is rich and pleasures abundant. Might as well gorge yourself on a bucket of fried cat.