Daniel McCormick’s a.k.a. Ital’s second record for Planet Mu is a gift and a curse at the same time. It came into being on an extensive world tour, which took the artist to the furthermost places of this world. Hence, »Dream On« is loaded with the most diverse impressions, which make this record become a colorful spectacle of sounds at its best parts. The self-confessed Audacity-tinkerer still refuses to use a professional sequencer-unit and instead lifts his arts with the popular free audiosoftware up to a new sphere. Level by level, Ital piles up the awry synth-sounds and overdriven frequencies on top of shaky drum-samples and worms somewhat appealing melodies out of them, UK-adaptions (»Boi«) or deep-house-references (»Deep Cut«). Non-conformist for nowadays, this method adds a special element of surprise to the artist Ital, who thereby eludes himself from being countable by the metronome and becomes a blessing for the listener. Unfortunately, his unconditional willingness to stick to this method is not always in his favor. Ital’s self-limitation is a handicap, especially when a reduction would do the tracks some good,. At those parts, where a mix-down would be beneficial, where one element should give way to another and thereby create some loosening up, the tracks are missing a certain far-sightedness, so that they appear as nothing more than a live-recording. Thankfully, this reasoning does not apply to the record-highlight »Deep Cut (Live Edit)«. However, all in all, a slight purification would be of advantage. »Dream On« remains to be a good album by a very talented young man, who would still be capable of something bigger.
Dream On
