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Mephisto Odyssey - the lift ep

Arizona Daily Wildcat,
April 5, 2000
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Three and a half stars

Since 1992, the Mephisto Odyssey has been producing dance music in the San Francisco bay area. That a collective can stay together so long and be so successful, in such a crowded market, says volumes for their persistence and talent.

With their new release, the lift ep, the group - Mikael Johnston, Orpheos Dejournette, Barrie Eves and Josh Camacho - has undertaken a departure from their earlier, more jazz-inflected work on Catching the Skinny. That 1997 album saw a good measure of critical and popular success, including the club hit, "Dream of the Black Dahlia."

The lift ep is a darker, more purist techno work than their previous efforts. Featuring six original songs, two remixes and one radio edit, this dance EP is a longer work than many pop LPs. The songs here all subscribe to the throbbing repetition that is the attraction and the curse of techno music.

However, there is a good deal of variation in the songs here. Minimalist bass beats are augmented with sinister thrumming. Textural vocals give way to synthesized bleeps and industrial sound effects, and all the elements create an interesting, if characteristically long-winded, mix.

The release's highlight, "Flow," is a nearly six-minute slab of impressive and foreboding acid-trance. With a relentless groove and some nice angular guitar work, the track stands as interesting music, not just a generic groove for club dancing.

While the EP probably will not earn the group huge amounts of new fans, it serves as an interesting prelude to the Mephisto Odyssey's upcoming full-length, due in midyear.


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