Release Date: July 3, 2019
Track Listing
- EKTO
- STRSTRK
- MARS DRIVE
- EKTO -SASUKE Remix-
- EKTO -Instrumental-
- STRSTRK -Instrumental-
- MARS DRIVE -Instrumental-
- EKTO -Acapella-
- STRSTRK -Acapella-
- MARS DRIVE -Acapella-
Review
mortal portal e.p. is the 24th single from m-flo and was released in commemoration of their 20th anniversary of their major label debut. This release features the theme song for the Hachioji Zombies stage play MARS DRIVE and the March 2019 release STRSTRK.
The e.p. starts off with the lead song EKTO. It is an electro pop ballad that has many of the classic m-flo touches along with some new tricks such as the robotic effects on the vocals and the seamless transition to the harder hitting beats as the song hits its crescendo.
EKTO manages to encapsulate all that made m-flo popular in the past while still pushing them further into the current phase of music that has been their calling card for the past couple of years.
MARS DRIVE was first released in October 2018 as a digital single and feels more like a true throwback to the days of m-flo yore. It is similar to the type of songs you would hear from Astromantic, BEAT SPACE NINE or Cosmicolor.
Should you be feeling nostalgic then this song will certainly satisfy that craving.
STRSTRK was m-flo’s first digital single release of 2019 and is the teaser for the upcoming “m-flo 3.0”. This is different from the other two songs on the mortal portal e.p. in that it has a much heavier feeling to it.
The drums and bass line are deep and dubby and the synth lines are detuned to add to the weight of the instrumental. When VERBAL’s rhymes and LISA’s vocals are added on top it creates some levity to keep the track from going too far down the rabbit hole of deepness.
Added on to the end of the e.p. is the SASUKE Remix of EKTO which takes the song into the poppier side of EDM. It’s quite different from the original so give it a listen if you want to hear an alternate interpretation of the song.
Lastly there are the instrumental and acapella versions of each song. The latter is surprising since those are hard to come by in a pure form these days. So if you’re a producer you might want to grab this e.p. just for those so you can have a clean m-flo vocal track to work with for sampling and/or remixing purposes.
In the end the follow up to 2018’s tripod e.p. 2 may have been a little too long coming, but it was worth the wait.
