Last week was the special free edition of NRGetic Romancer (featuring Adrenaline), and the turnout was pretty good. We were worried beforehand that Friday would be difficult for most people, and although again a lot of the regular ravers were missing, the numbers were eventually made up by a big group of unfamiliar faces. If they keep coming to future events, then that’ll be a real result.
I was at Studio Cube again (!) last night, for the TRANCE Halloween event, featuring former Velfarre resident John Robinson. Of more interest to me was the 4th ‘Hard’ floor, as Zio, Minagi and Aemi were all playing. There might be some video/photos on the way, so stay tuned. The roundup of last week’s NRGetic Romancer will be here tomorrow, too.
Lately I’ve been listening to Nookie again, so here are a couple of my favourite remixes by the great man. The first is a rework of Omni Trio’s Soul Promenade – try to overlook the dodgy sounding piano, this is a perfect example of what jungle was all about back then. That breakdown and the drums at 3.00… Next is a remix of Goldie’s Inner City Life – a seminal tune if ever there was one – Nookie uses some of my favourite breakbeats and a chopped up amen on this version.
Anyway, Top Ten:
I’m always meaning to check this event out, as Alabaster usually plays a lot of Finnish tracks alongside his own productions. The tracklist for this one was a little different though, with a lot of schranz/hard trance to start things off before he used Ruins of Jade (above) as a link into the freeform. Angel of Hell is another of his favourites, and this is a really nice mix between the two, continuing in the video down below.
The rest of the set included Dryad Machine and Pain on Creation’s Lush – good to see that the older FINRG sound is alive and well in Tokyo, and not only at NRGetic Romancer.
The next promo mix for this week is Grimsoul’s 2 Much 2 Fast, a showcase of his whole range from hard trance up to freeform. This set might be more uplifting than melancholy, but there is still a lot of atmosphere in here. Plenty of my favourite tunes too, including Kadotettu Todellisuus 2009, which I think features one of the best ‘intro breakdowns’ for a long time.
Tracklist:
It’s always good to hear a new set from Sam one – this time is no different, with some brand new hard trance and freeform. The opening track (a remix of Rob.o.t.t’s Rewire) shows the kind of fresh sound that can come out of Hybridize…although it’s very much hard trance bpm, there are enough filtered synths to add more pace and give it a rougher freeform feel (similar to some of Grimsoul’s slower tunes).
The rest of the tracks are well up to Sam one’s usual standards – he’s still coming up with fast, addictive melodies that would get pretty much any crowd moving. The last two tunes are more of an uplifting freeform style, including his great remix of My Serenity.
For anyone with even the slightest interest in trance style melodies, this is a definite must-listen – download here.
Thanks to the FINRG crew, my newest NRGetic Romancer/Hybridize set has now been added to the Media>DJ Mixes section of the site. When I signed up to FINRG 3 years ago I never would have imagined one day being in there alongside those classic mixes from Rx, Pain on Creation, E-NRG etc, so huge thanks again to Swoosh, Rx and the rest of the guys.
Two very hardcore events coming up, the first being Tokyo Hardcore Construction at Studio Cube. This time sees Zio making his debut, probably playing a Hardstyle set, and most of the regulars will be there too. It looks like Lala will be absent though, which is a real shame as his sets are always one of the highlights. Anyway, I’ll probably be going along to this one.
Lunch is playing at about 4 or 5 events in the coming weeks, and one that caught my eye is Everfree, a Goth/Lolita/Cyber/Fetish/electronica mashup. Kanon will be playing too, along with live guests AkiraDeath and m1dy, so it definitely won’t be one for the fainthearted. NRGetic Romancer is sort of on the edge of some of those scenes, so it might be interesting to see what the atmosphere’s like… Rounding things off is the venue – Chelsea Hotel in Shibuya. I’ve been there once before for one of Kangu’s live gigs, and it’s a pretty small place with a tiny dancefloor, so if this one attracts a crowd it could be insanity in there.
There’s no stopping FINRG right now, and DJ Rx has just uploaded a batch of new and old releases to YouTube. One that many people won’t have heard before is In Memoriam, a very nasty track with a fantastic growling intro and Lab 4-ish breakdown/main melody. Thanks to Eirik for letting me know that it’s already been added to the list of new releases at FINRG…another must-download, for sure.
How about this for a surprise? Added to the five Hybridize releases this weekend is a FINRG track from the vaults – Re-form’s 2004 bootleg of Walking in the Air. I heard this one for the first time about 10 minutes ago, and wow….what an awesome choice of track to bootleg. Of course I know the original from the ancient animation The Snowman, and this is pretty much exactly the kind of tune I like best….melancholy melody? High bpm? Nasty filtered synths? It’s all in there. Of course, being a 2004 track it’s lacking some of the complexity of the later releases, but there’s no way I’m going to complain.
The next edition of Operation Karma is coming next month, in Kawasaki once more. For the 3rd edition THC’s Kanon will again be making a guest appearance, along with Gothic Bar Heaven’s TETRA (who I haven’t seen play before). Get on the guest list and entrance is only 1500yen, which is very reasonable for an event that is usually 90% freeform – though of course most people have to factor in the trip to Kawasaki, too.
Another thing worth mentioning is the newly up-and-running Karma site. It’s looking very pro already, and has some video, profiles, and also a promo mix by (I’m guessing) DJ MT. I haven’t got a tracklist yet (I forgot some of the track titles, to be honest), but it’s the perfect showcase for the Karma sound. Very melodic freeform with a strong anime theme, it starts off with Operation Stardust and Endstille (the classic mix combination), before going into the most melodic end of the Finnish sound. There are a lot of anime samples added during the long breakdowns etc, which does a very good job of tying the set together. If you don’t understand Japanese it should sound very cool, but I forgot how incredibly corny the dialogue is in a lot of these things… Still, it’s very well chosen/mixed, and highly recommended.