Let’s step away from freeform again for a minute to enjoy a beautiful new Paokala track, one of the nicest downtempo tunes yet from Alek Szahala or any of his aliases. Right up there with some of Nomic’s piano pieces, I’m really glad that this has gone up on FINRG’s SoundCloud, giving the label’s followers a taste of the deeper sounds Alek is capable of.
Finnish
If you’re after a 30 minute burst of NRG and freeform, look no further than this great Dyzphazia set from last week. His finger’s on the pulse as usual with some brand new selections, but the second half also has some lovely, unexpected choices that flow very nicely towards the manic Night Prey.
- Cyrez – Raver’s Legacy [Rebuild]
- Ikaruga Nex – Black Hawk Down [CDr]
- Le Dos-On – A (Cyrez Remix) [Splash Energy! Records]
- Substanced & J-Mx – Flawless Victory [FiNRG]
- Transcend – Eons [CDr]
- Alf Bamford – Heartburn (Dark By Design Remix) [Hard Timez]
- Kevin Energy & Proteus – London Helsinki Underground (Proteus Warcry Remix) [Nu Energy Collective]
- Technical Itch & Kemal – The Calling (Evol Intent & Ewun Remix) [Moving Shadow]
- Pain On Creation – Night Prey (Live Edit) [CDr]
The freeform world’s already well aware of this bit of news, but a new Alek Szahala track always deserves a post of its own. Deimos is a wonderful mid-point between Alek’s current sound and the otherwordly melodies of a few years ago, and is an absolute floor-killer at slightly higher bpms.
Here’s a recent track from BRK that’s an essential for the NRG heads, and might even be one of his best so far. The melodies and synths are firmly in Lab 4 territory, which is about the highest compliment you can give a Hard NRG tune.
No Mercy was also included in Cyberdyne Seba’s newest set, Hoovers at the Edge of the Universe. The middle section is far too hard-housey for me, but there are some great acid picks here and there with the harder and nastier NRG saved for the second half. Really worth checking out, this one.
The deadline has been and gone for Le Dos-on’s A remix project, and the tunes are available to download on the Splash Energy Recordings site. The genres are eclectic to say the least, but the biggest track for freeform fans is definitely Cyrez’s slower, NRG-styled remix. It does a brilliant job of putting Cyrez’s stamp on the track, while keeping the Le Dos-on meets Alek Szahala feel of the original. Of the other remixes, my favourite is probably Supremacy’s ferocious gabber version, but head over to Splash Energy Recordings and check them all out for yourself.
It’s finally time for a look back at 10 Years of FINRG and my escapades in Finland and the UK – part of the reason for this write-up’s massive delay is the difficulty of doing justice to what was an utterly stupendous trip from start to finish. This might well be a long one (and in fact is version 3 of the post), but feel free to skip through to the event section where you’ll find my tracklist and a few other bits and pieces of behind the scenes-related stuff.
Important edit: Apologies to Raver71 for not crediting his photo of the Senssi decor. Check here for his awesome album from the night, and click here for the equally great Sessions2 photos, where you’ll find me looking especially psychopathic.
A nice set from Grimsoul here that was in danger of going under the radar, and is another great collection of modern freeform sounds in the Substanced/Amini style. Indeed, the set gets things going with TYFTH’s Lost Elegy, before running through a lot of newer/recent tracks. Things take a turn for the unusual in the second half, with some lighter sounds mixed in with Grimsoul classics and an oddly bouncy finale, but without a tracklist I’m pretty lost as to what’s going on.
Plenty of quality here though, and well worth a listen.
Plenty of nice mixes to catch up on over the next few days, so let’s start with a great Freeformanics effort from Cuedy. Definitely a set for the Horsers, this one features a lot of new tracks and some very interesting connections, leading into a quality finish. The standout for me was the excellent use of L.E.D Galaxy – it’s not easy to suddenly throw in a Qygen track, but here it makes perfect sense and Eternal Cannon works very nicely as a follow-up. Final thanks to Cuedy for ending with TYFTH’s very own Glacial, it’s brilliant to see how it’s still getting plays these days.
- DJ RX – Code Of Silence (Le Dos-On Remix)
- Eryk Orpheus – Benodihydrochloride
- Horzi – The Elegy (Substanced Remix)
- Helikaon Vs Ephexis – Exploder
- Alchemiist – Fate
- Transcend – Domination
- Lost Soul – Rescue Me (Remix)
- Betwixt & Between – Hidden Radiance
- Epyx & Cyrez – Unreachable
- Substanced & Alchemiist – Permission to Die
- Qygen – L.E.D. Galaxy
- RR-Thermal Force – Eternal Cannon
- Zio – Glacial
The timetable for this weekend’s Munted! extravaganza is now public, and is looking very nice indeed. Sadly the curse of work-on-a-Saturday has struck again, so I’ll have to rustle up a cunning plan that gets me home in time for my set (3am GMT, midday on Saturday JST). In a perfect world I’d be able to catch Aryx too, but that might be asking too much this time. For the Europe crew this has all the makings of a lovely night, so settle in for a full 8 hours of freeform and I hope to join everyone in the second half.
GMT Timetable, Fri. 21st Dec
10-11 THUMPA
11-12 ENDEMIC
12-01 SUBSTANCED (HISTORY OF SUBSTANCED SHOWCASE)
01-02 DOUGLAS
02-03 ARYX
03-04 PLASMADANCER (BETWIXT & BETWEEN TRIBUTE SET)
04-05 A.B
05-06 MIDAS
JST Timetable, １２月２２日 （土）
07-08 THUMPA
08-09 ENDEMIC
09-10 SUBSTANCED (HISTORY OF SUBSTANCED SHOWCASE)
10-11 DOUGLAS
11-12 ARYX
12-13 PLASMADANCER (BETWIXT & BETWEEN TRIBUTE SET)
13-14 A.B
14-15 MIDAS
You can probably imagine what I’ve been doing for the past week, but with all that almost finished it’s time to ease back into the posting with a real stormer of an event. FINRG & FUTURISTICS marks the changing of the FINRG guard, with the ‘newer’ artists stepping up to make their marks. The lineup is a fabulous one, with the main headlining acts making it worth a trip from almost anywhere – Proteus vs Epyx & Cyrez, and an Alek Szahala, Nomic and Aryx Live PA. Whether the atmosphere can match the pure magic of 10 Years of FINRG remains to be seen, but this is still a massive one to look forward to.
I might actually be able to attend too, as once again it’ll be time for Project Get Away From Tokyo, and the vague plan is to head somewhere Europe-ward around February/March time. Check the FINRG & FUTURISTICS event page for full info, but here’s a sneaky look at the lineup in the meantime:
PROTEUS vs. EPYX & CYREZ LIVE [Säde / Finrg]
ALEK SZAHALA vs. NOMIC & ARYX(SI) LIVE [Finrg / ReBuild]
DOUGLAS(UK) & ENDEMIC(UK) [Hard Beats Collective]
THE NEW ERA COLLECTIVE LIVE [Finrg]
J7 & JAYVEE & ILLUVIAL [Finrg]
KABINET ROBOTS [Futuristics]
FUTURISTICS ROOM:
VERTICAL [Parvati Records]
MACDETHIX [Futuristics]
TREMONT [Futuristics]
SOLAR EMOTION [Wavedata Records]
MIKADO [Futuristics]