What’s young Montreal producer d’Eon doing here? As Kallisti he’s releasing a loose, chaotic mess of rave tracks that could have been sucked out of a primetime lollipop-sucking, glowstick-waving party in 1992. Culturally it feels like we’ve definitely entered an era of the ‘misremembered Nineties’.
What sets this aside from fellow youngsters Zomby and Glowstyx, and veteran Paul Woolford/Special Request, is his almost unflinching focus on piano vamps, helium divas, chipmunk vocal speedups, and that early sped-up breakbeat of Urban Hype, Mickey Finn just before the jungle era of Akai drum sample choppage. Its not until the closing three tracks – Clubbin, Dancefloor and the title track Arc of Fire – that the sonics are brought closer to the present with hazy slurred R&B samples, and rippling synths replacing the vamps.
With all but a few tracks under three minutes, nothing outstays its welcome. An unexpected detour from d’Eon.
Seb Chan
