Ital
Dream On
Release Date: Nov 13, 2012
Genre(s): Electronic, Club/Dance
Record label: Planet Mu
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Album Review: Dream On by Ital
Great, Based on 7 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
If you’d asked me a year ago which artists best exemplified the state of the contemporary avant-underground, I’d have said Daniel Lopatin and James Ferraro, and left it that. No doubt about it. Today, I’d want to add Daniel Martin-McCormick to the list. While mainstream pop is busy converging on a single mutant mega-genre — euro-dance, feat.
Based on rating 76%%
ItalDream On[Planet Mu; 2012]By Will Ryan; November 12, 2012Purchase at: Insound (Vinyl) | Amazon (MP3 & CD) | iTunes | MOGTweetDepending on who you ask, Daniel Martin-McCormick has been having kind of a great 2012. Dream On, his second LP as Ital, is his third this year. That includes the third full-length from mutant disco outfit Mi Ami, Decade, as well as Ital's excellent Planet Mu debut, Hive Mind.
Based on rating 7.4/10
The most distinct and memorable voice heard on Ital's Hive Mind was a shredded and reassembled Lady Gaga coolly stammering the titular, "Born This Way"-sourced refrain of "Doesn't Matter (If You Love Him)" over grimy downtempo funk-house. The most distinct and memorable voice heard on Dream On, meanwhile, is the one that opens "What a Mess": the flange-distorted pleads of a choked-up woman at a 2009 town hall meeting, asking Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn what he could do to help her uninsured husband after he suffered a traumatic brain injury. Coburn's response-- that citizens have to rely on community instead of government for help-- is multitracked and reverbed into oblivion before being smothered by a dense organ chord and crumbled apart by skittering hi-hats.
Based on rating 7/10
Late one night, I was listening to a music mix on shuffle and a gigantic slab of contorted steely synth started coming through my headphones. The melody attempting to emerge seemed to be fighting against an endless array of filters dicing it and pitting simple cymbals mercilessly against swinging congas. Recognizing the sentiment, I instantly mistook it for Squarepusher, but as it turns out it was Ital, the dancefloor-inspired project of Daniel Martin-McCormick.
Based on rating 7/10
Ital (aka Daniel Martin-McCormick) is Planet Mu's latest signing. If you weren't already aware, Mu has exceptional taste in new electronic artists, so it was with some excitement that the public and press received Dream On. But was that hype deserved? Well, for once, yes. Ital is of a rare breed; he's a producer that effortlessly imbues his productions with soul, verve and, most importantly in this age of faceless sub-wobble, personality.
Opinion: Very Good
It shouldn’t be surprising that Daniel Martin-McCormick has a thing for horror director David Cronenberg. Under the umbrella of his ever-evolving dance music project Ital, the former punk of bands like Black Eyes and Mi Ami has continued to find new ways to explore the queasy intersection between house music’s hopeful utopianism and noise’s celebration of the grotesque. Like Cronenberg, Ital is simultaneously inspired and repelled by the human body, finding it both a source of pleasure and anxiety.Following his evanescent debut from this year, Hive Mind, released on Planet Mu, Ital sounds eager to delve deeper into the realm of body horror on his follow-up, Dream On.
Opinion: Fairly Good
A confusingly cluttered follow-up to a celebrated breakthrough. Darren Loucaides 2012 Ital’s Dream On is his second release of 2012, following February’s Hive Mind. In March, the man otherwise known as Daniel Martin-McCormick also put out a record with Mi Ami, the project he’s best known for, entitled Decade. It’s anyone’s guess how he managed to keep this dub-punk experimentalist outfit going while finding time to venture into house and techno, starting with Sex Worker, and now in the very different guise of Ital.