Michael It'z
Chromatic Nostalgia

Rarely in life have I been completely overwhelmed by an album, rarely have I fully grasped the meaning it wants to convey;

I don't know if Michael It'z intended to represent nostalgia in sound form or just wanted to compose an album with melancholic cadences, but the fact is that the album Chromatic Nostalgia has an emotional power for me that is not insignificant;

While browsing Bandcamp, I stumbled upon the page of Shimmering Moods Records. I remember this label well; back in 2018, I got to know it through the album 'Curves' by Olan Mill, so I took a look at the latest releases hoping to find some rare gem like 'Curves'. Then suddenly my eyes fell on the cover of Chromatic Nostalgia, an artwork completely different from the rest of the catalog, featuring a fragmented face colored in cold and rigid black and white. I opened it and listened to the three available tracks: Never Forget You (the album's first track), Few Steps Away from You, and Untitled ll, three completely different tracks but somehow they fit well together;

I decided not to buy the CD but to wait for the release date (February 10, 2023), but, as if driven by an unknown force, I continued to open Bandcamp and replay those three songs repeatedly in the days following.

The album was released, and I was on pins and needles. I opened Bandcamp, put on my headphones, and started listening. I wasn't disappointed (as often happens); for the first time in a long time, I fell in love with the artist's bold choices, an album of startling coldness, a rich sound design that manages to be synthetic and sharp;

The tracklist is like a call to a past life, a life now distant that has left a groove within the soul,

The artist Michael It'z takes us on a journey into a blurred past; listening to this album is like looking at an old photo.

The album opens with Never Forget You, a strange way to start such a work. The song is a continuous loop of distant, compressed voices, culminating in a finale that releases a delicate vocal sample, as if Michael wanted to give us a candy after making us drink a little poison;

Then it moves to Harmonic Violence, an astonishing track; I couldn't tell whether I liked it or not. The same concept as the opening track but accompanied by a broken rhythm compressed by delays and reverbs, a track with a structure never heard before, a continuous loop that once opened becomes one with the listener;

One expects it to explode now, but it doesn't. The following track is a full-fledged ambient composition… Everything was Beautiful, a soundscape gradually increasing with disarming delicacy;

Few steps away from you, the fourth track on the album, the saddest piece and in my opinion the best executed of the entire album; if nostalgia could be described with sounds, it would sound exactly like this track.

Then it moves to A Fragile Symmetry and Milk (tracks I appreciated less), until reaching a thrilling final triptych,

Untitled ll: a rising drone that releases a refined Handpan sample accompanied by a vocal sample of Eppure Sentire by Elisa;

In the Silence We Disappear, a sound blanket that makes us disappear and opens the doors to the most emotional track of this Chromatic Nostalgia, Anatomy of a Memorie: the perfect closure for a stunning album!

Chromatic Nostalgia is a brave and elegant album, with refined and sometimes sophisticated sound design; I highly recommend it to lovers of experimental music.

Although I would have improved some aspects from the arrangement perspective of some tracks, this is a special album.