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Mythos Jules Verne – Around the World in 80 Days Review by Gary Hill The previous album from Mythos was the first musical look into the works of Jules Verne. This one focuses on one of his books. It’s a cool musical journey. Mythos is Stephan Kaske’s project. It’s an electronic musical entity. I generally put it under prog because it is progressive music, if not progressive rock. This disc, like the whole catalog, is an intriguing musical journey. You really do feel like you’ve taken quite a trek by the end of this thing.The distribution on this is pretty limited at the moment. If you can't find it at your usual sources, check out www.groove.nl to get your copy. This review is available in book format (hardcover and paperback) in Music Street Journal: 2016 Volume 3 at lulu.com/strangesound.

Track by Track Review

Phileas Foggs Dream Although this starts with electronics, it feels like a living breathing thing. Some sounds like throat singing and tribal horns emerge in the arrangement as it moves forward. Overall, this is very tribal with some vocals as instrumentation and more.

Around The World In 80 Days This is a really powerful bit of electronic sound. It maintains some of the same sounds from the previous one, but somehow sheds the tribal texture. The voices are gone. This is an energetic and suitably soaring bit of music. It’s rather mysterious in some ways.

Across The Mediterranean Sea To Egypt Very much a continuation of the previous piece, this gets more dramatic in some ways. It has some things that make me think of a cross between Kraftwerk and Vangelis.

Steamer To Bombay There is a real psychedelic vibe to this piece. It still has that Kraftwerk/Vangelis thing going on, too. By around the seven minute mark the piece has taken on some Asian elements. This is the longest composition here, running over ten minutes. It has some cool shifts and changes. Rather like space music, none of the changes happen quickly, with the music instead gradually evolving.

To Calcutta By Elephant Parts of this piece have an almost techno industrial vibe to them. There is also a bit of playful nature at times. This is another great electronic based musical adventure.

From Calcutta To Hong Kong This is much more trippy and echoey. There is a bit of a world music feeling to it, but also something closer to a loud rock sound. A triumphant sounding movement emerges further along this musical road.

From Yokohama To San Francisco I dig the melodies and mid-tempo groove to this piece. It’s not a huge change, but in some ways it feels more accessible. It gets into some cool spacey territory as it continues.

Across The Atlantic Ocean Another extended cut (over nine and a half minutes), this comes in tentatively and builds out gradually. After a time it drops to some rather spacey atmospherics. There is a flute like bit built into this that’s pretty cool.

Its off to Liverpool! The misspelling in the title is part of the actual song title, not my typo. The piece is very dramatic and powerful with the electronic melody lines weaving a really great tapestry.

It Seems The Wager Has Been Lost This has more atmospheric textures as it builds outward. There is a real adventurous vibe to this thing. It gets into some almost jazzy space grooves later.

The Triumph This melodic journey does have a bit of a triumphant feeling to it. It’s also a bit playful at times and mysterious at others. The space element at the end really takes it out into the stratosphere.

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