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Planet Mu Records

  • Ital 'Hive Mind' - Cargo Records UK

    Planet Mu Records

    Ital 'Hive Mind'

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    Planet Mu Records

    Ital 'Hive Mind'

    £8.99

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    If you've heard Daniel Martin-McCormick's name recently, it would probably have been either in association with his disco/punk/echo band 'Mi Ami', or as 'Sex Worker' on the Not Not Fun label, or finally as 'Ital' on NNF's sister label 100% Silk, recording quite different sounding house music to this album. Raised in Washington DC, Daniel has a history in the city's hardcore scene, he was in the Dischord records signed 'Black Eyes', but was also making dance inspired tracks at the same period, but coming from a very different angle from your average guy with a copy of Logic and a working knowledge of dance music's history.
     
    Daniel's music is a stranger thing. Working best at high volume, it uses house's easy going 4/4 structure as a kind of camouflage for more out-there sonic explorations; subverting expectations, seeking out the links between the space and the sound-bending of dub & industrial's unsettling sonics with the grooves of classic house and the effects and black holes of minimal at it's weirdest. The album has a sculptured feel; sounds twist in space, feeling almost three dimensional and melodies pitch-shift in an unsettling way; voices dissolve in and out of these frameworks and the whole album has a unique, haunted feel; nothing is ever allowed to settle totally comfortably, everything vibrates. 'Hive Mind's' titles also hint at such themes as how culture insinuates itself on you and the meaning of pleasure, it's ironies and forms, drawing in creeping fears of the internet age.

    Opener 'Doesn't Matter (If You Love Him)' sounds a bit like Tackhead if they had made house music, using a flickering and confidently repeated phrase over a lumbering drum and bassline, introducing swirling and bombing synths into the mix ' once the secret comes out. 'Floridian Void's' strange marrying of treated voices and swelling, pitch-bent chords and effects draws the listener into its strange atmosphere; it's an ambient house track of sorts, but the ambience here is a swirling, confusing, watery vortex rather than being fuzzy and new age. 'Privacy Settings' builds creepy wolf howls over a slow bassline and cold faraway banging drums, estranged from their usual disco setting. Next, 'Israel' picks things up again, with weird, pitch-shifting edited bells over dubby toms, all the while cold chords rushing in and out over this unsettling backing track. The closer 'Final Wave' restores the album back to something resembling normality, with a disco-like swing that recalls Moodymann's beat down productions but slid through brutal dub-like FXs that bring out a shade of strangeness in an otherwise happy groove.X

    Side A:
    1. Doesn't Matter (If You Love Him)
    Side B:
    1. Floridian Void
    2. Privacy Settings
    Side C:
    1. Israel
    Side D:
    1. First Wave
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  • Ital 'Dream On' - Cargo Records UK

    Planet Mu Records

    Ital 'Dream On'

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    Planet Mu Records

    Ital 'Dream On'

    £11.99

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    With his second release for Planet Mu this year, 'Dream On' is more of a full-length outing for Ital aka Daniel Martin-McCormick and a much more substantial record than the popular and critically acclaimed 'Hive Mind'.

    On 'Dream On' Ital takes his experimentation with house and techno forms even further, creating impressionistic deconstructions from the tropes of early house and techno. Sunny chords, laid back drum shuffle and rhythmic vocal loops are picked apart and threaded with a rich psychodrama of delirious textures, tidal chords and uneasy roughness and dissonance.

    Having spent over 20 weeks on the road since the completion of 'Hive Mind', 'Dream On' reflects the raw energy of the live show and the touring mindset: the heady, dream-feel of house, cut with both dub's fracturing smear and an understanding of the power of distortion, honed from years working in DIY and noise.

    'Despot' starts the album with a trancey bassline punctuated with off-key vocal stabs, the form of the track brutally prized apart with pitch-shifting seasick chords. It's the longest track and and a powerful opener. 'Boi's' mix of stuttering vocal loops, aqueous chords and frantic drums is tainted with sorrow and loss. It's got a nervous energy, always feeling like it's going to topple in on itself, lapsing from ravey propulsion into nauseated hiss and back again.

    'Eat Shit (Waterfalls Mix)' is broken and distressed techno in miniature, making the most of distortion and echo to create shimmer and splinters of noise over rough, murky percussion.

    The dark center of the album, 'Enrique', strips things back to a cavernous ambience with molasses-slow vocals and a heartbeat drum, building into pulsing tones and scratching noise pulled across the spectrum. Another miniature, 'Housecapella', is deep house smudged and deconstructed into weightlessness; it's over before it begins to drag you in.

    'What a Mess' sounds like music rotting; running epic, wilting chords, soaring melodies and hysterical vocals through curdling effects. 'Deep Cut' finishes by rubbing warm, emotional deep house tones, shuffling drums and claps against harsh electric guitar-like drones. 'Dream On' takes you out of the ordinary and drops you into Ital's dislocated dance.

    Tracklisting:
    1. Despot
    2. Boi
    3. Eat Shit (Waterfalls Mix)
    4. Enrique
    5. Housecapella
    6. What A Mess
    7. Deep Cut (Live Edit)
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