Ian Dadon - Youtopia

Hear The Track Here

I was always under the impression that Israeli musician Ian Dadon was a one man band so I was a bit surprised to see that he now has a band called Rumour Control, although he has still to recruit others to this banner. (Ed: so he's still a one man band then? wtf was all that about??) While I haven't been overly enthusiastic about his work so far, nonetheless he has got off fairly lightly considering that all the tracks I have heard so far had their own little faults - although more technical than musical thankfully. None of that would have prepared me for Youtopia though, which is much, much tougher than anything I have heard from him before, with a bitter darkness at its heart that makes it really appealing for me at least. Others may beg to differ, it bothers me not.

What is immediately apparent is that Ian has put in some serious work in the one area he was having problems in, production. Although it's not without its faults, Youtopia is probably the best sounding Ian Dadon track. Billed as Alternative: Experimental I personally can't see much that is experimental about it, but that's a small snipe in the scheme of things. It comes across as more goth rock than anything else although without the power and energy of that genre. The first part of the track is almost electronica in texture although I'm sure most of it is Ian playing some instrument or other, and it isn't until the later sections that he becomes the acoustic Ian Dadon we have known in the past.

Mind you, if I didn't point some things out that did bother me about the track, I wouldn't be doing that good a job would I? Ian Dadon is undoubtedly a talented songwriter but his musical and technical skill sometimes runs ahead of the ideas, and not always in a helpful direction. The worst culprit here was the vocal which is pitched pretty low to start with gets completely buried in the mix from time to time and - as in all his songs - words are the mainstay of his work. Moreover some of the other instruments started to stand out - over a period of plays - until it finally became irritating, such as the hi-hat figure that runs through the rockier parts of the song. Still, as a straight forward alternative song, and his continued improvement on the technical side, show that Ian Dadon is someone worth keeping track of.

Recommended Alternative.