Robert Miles ‎– Dreamland

I hate "Children", but even if you ignore that, this album is still pretty bad.

Alot of hard trance jocks probably only bought this ep for one track "RedZone". A huge Kenny Sharp set opener at Uprising between the years 1996-2000 and featuring in his later retrospective sets (Uprising Gold studio sessions volume 1). With its deep synth and swirling opening this track really sets the tone for the rest of the night, its quite hard for robert miles when you compare it to the rest of the stuff he has produced.

The name Robert Miles will forever be associated with 'Children', perhaps the most universally-loved, beautiful and uplifting composition of the 20th century. That might sound like a sweeping statement, until you realise it's most probably true.

So in theory a whole album of 'dream house' from the Italian genius would be awesome. But the reality is slightly different. 'Dreamland' is essentially 80 minutes of the same dreamy piano, synth bassline and unimaginative beat. All the tracks have pretty much the same sound and structure, except 'Red Zone', a track that seems hugely exciting compared to the samey-ness of the rest.

Of course Robert Miles changed his style dramatically with his next album '23AM' and all his music released since is significantly different to the stuff on 'Dreamland', though still with depth and intelligence. 'Dreamland' is just a capsule of his style at the time.

When I bought this CD I was only familiar with the tracks "Children" and "Fable", but since I quite liked them, I decided to buy this album.

Although not exactly a bad choice, I was a bit disappointed. The problem with the tracks is that they all use the same elements: same piano, same strings, same synths... even the drums and bass sound almost the same. I know these elements more or less define the "dream house" sound Robert Miles was known for at the time of this release, and while the tracks themselves aren't bad or anything, it's just that a whole CD of the stuff gets quite boring.
The upside of having the tracks sound so alike is that the album has a very consistent dreamy/chilled atmosphere. The cheesy poppy vocals on "One & One" kind of break the atmosphere though. "Red Zone" deserves to mentioned too, since this is the only track on the album that doesn't use the piano-sound used in the other tracks, and has a bit of a proggy trance mood. Yet still it blends in nicely with rest of the tracks, which sort of proves that Miles didn't need to fill the disk with 10 clones of "Children".

Robert Miles (real name Roberto Concina) Has worked wonders with this beautifully-written album. I would classify Dreamland as a work of art. The first track, A dreams version of his best selling Dance track children, is extraordinary, It profilles as one of the best tracks that I have ever heard on the whole album, no wonder this track made the charts in Britain. The dreams version of his track Fable, If i'm honest, gives me a bit of a headache, given this screams of the somewhat demented female vocalist. the piano riff is quite beautiful, though. The Following track, Fantasya, is much better though, Miles really makes sure this track is full with fantastic sounds and effects...

While I realise that some people feel this of a lot of electronic music, to me this just all sounds the same. It's the same synth string pads, the same drums, the same harmonies and the same texture throughout. There's nothing to distinguish one track in my memory from any other. Sure, it's reasonably nice stuff, but it's not worth getting excited over in my opinion.

i still think this release holds up. even more so when you compare it to a lot of nu trance albums. although, the sounds of trance today is much harder than the time when this release first came out, everything that "trance" represents is here. look no further when you read the title "Children (Dream Mix)" (also doesn't hurt to have the number one track to convert non-dance listeners over)

What a beautiful album. It elicits very deep, often lonely emotions... but a nostalgia you cannot resist. I am continually amazed at how emotionally powerful the synths are... and the sounds themselves, not just the notes and chords.