Jordan, a transcontinental duo, creates popular music that is, prima facie, multicultural. Spanish national Marcos Sueiro, from a small town in the hills outside Barcelona, met American Nicholas Markos as each of them worked on album projects in various studios around Chicago. Jordan developed while the two were on tour, playing in the band of English singer Cath Carroll, in the American West. Stopping their vehicle by the side of a road that threaded the Confusion Range in western Utah, the idea for Jordan materialized. "I stood upon that hilltop, my ten-thousand filaments stretched across the ether, and suddenly I was in touch with the really real," says Markos. From the far side of the ocean, they put the wheels in motion. Jordan's debut album. Epiphany, was meticulously constructed over the course of three years on a vintage 4-track cassette machine, due to budgetary and technological constraints. You'd never suspect the low-tech approach, though, after hearing the epic soundscapes and thunderous tones of this album. Sounds that you think are keyboards are actually guitars, and vice versa. "Marcos is a wizard; it's simply unreal what he can do with a 1984 Ensoniq keyboard and a 4-track cassette machine," marvels Nicholas. "He can make so much magic out of those old devices. You would never guess that this record was made the way it was. Marcos knows how to get the machines to bend to his will." Comparisons are frequently made to The Blue Nile, Ultravox, and other evocative, innovative groups. All of these are valid and flattering, though Jordan also draws on the compositional inspiration of The Who's Quadrophenia and Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. It is masterful, epic synth-pop, but not retro. This is definitely not shtick--it is heartfelt, forward-thinking music, with sophisticated composition. Melodies appear and reappear, weaving through different songs to create a unified whole. Instrumental pieces provide context and transition for a distinctly coherent album. The Jordan Story Under a darkening sky the young man gathered his things for the journey. Sensing that he would not find himself in this place again, he drew a long breath and let the smell of the air etch a bittersweet memory. Looking down the gentle decline of the hill toward the river, he absorbed the scene for later reflection -- a psychic touchstone from a closing chapter. Now he was man enough, and the time had come to shake off the ghosts. Pealing thunder announced the departure of a horse and its man from that spot by the riverbank. He turned up the collar of his faded coat and squinted hard at the long plain ahead of him. Thin tears slid along his tan cheeks as he rode away. The man of faith is often the one who sees more clearly the gaps in his beliefs; so it was for this young man, searching for his soul's drug under the October sky. Questioning heaven, he wondered about the value of his experience. Did it hold all that it should for a man of twenty-seven summers? The answer, of course, was that it must. In matters of the heart, where all that matters ultimately dwells, the stars had thus far obstructed his path. He had been allowed to wander down the lane, but only to the edge of the garden. The hour was now at hand, though, when he would rise up from the miry clay of his regrets and do that which he should have done long ago. The tears that he couldn't stop before would cease to flow, the urn into which they poured would finally dry up, and the world around him would declare, "Behold the man." Crossing the range that night under the falling stars, the young man felt a certain peace in his solitude, a strengthening of the spirit gained by befriending the demons that surrounded his fire and by surmounting the hatred that lay as thickets in his path. After all that he had been through he could now clearly see the road ahead, and when the red lights of the new dawn danced gently upon the unfolding horizon, he was indeed ready to shoulder the sky. . . .