UK

Substanced – F for Freeform

Posted by PlasmaDancer on January 20, 2011
Posted in: Finnish, Mixes, UK. 1 comment

Substanced – F For Freeform [Promo Mix 2011] by FINRG Recordings

Substanced has got his promo set in early this year, and reflecting the scene these days it has a very UK freeform feel about it. This one is obviously aiming for dancefloor pleasers rather than melancholy style, but listen out for a lovely section in the middle with Substanced’s Wonderland and Evolution back to back. If you’re into the lighter brand of freeform then the rest of the set will be a nice listen too, and the mixing is of course rock-solid.

Psylokk vs Nova – Hypnotic Arrangements

Posted by PlasmaDancer on January 18, 2011
Posted in: Finnish, Mixes, UK. 1 comment

Psylokk Vs Nova – Hypnotic Arrangments by Psylokk vs Nova

If you feel like a break from the typical freeform set, then Dyzphazia’s new project might be just the thing. Here going by the name Psylokk, this is a b2b (?) set with Nova that genre-wise is all over the place. Starting off with some melodic psytrance, it also crosses into hard house, pitched-down freeform and even breaks. The result is a really interesting set that obviously took a lot of planning and has some great track combinations. Freeform fans might find Hellfire a bit slow, but personally I reckon Polar Energy sounds fantastic. Anyway, a highly recommended change of pace, this one.

  1. DNA vs Gataplex – Music in my soul
  2. Gataplex vs Michele Adamson – Freedom
  3. Perplex vs DNA – Stop drop and Roll
  4. En-gen – Bankai (D.N.I Rmx)
  5. A-mush – Phanatic Area
  6. Neurodriver – Sidewinder (Original Mix)
  7. Miraculix – My Machines
  8. Epyx and Cyrez vs Substanced – Expedition Bloodbath
  9. DJ RX – Hellfire
  10. Re:creation – Eclipse
  11. Unconscious Mind(S) – Damnation (Original Mix)
  12. Epyx and Cyrez – Polar Energy

Alabaster – Happy New Year 2011

Posted by PlasmaDancer on January 10, 2011
Posted in: Drum & Bass, Finnish, Japanese, Mixes, UK. 1 comment

Before the much-delayed Top 3 post (coming later today), let’s get 2011 started with a New Year set from Alabaster. This one is brilliantly put together, running through a few genres and about 16 years’ worth of tunes. The mix starts off with a 35-minute happy hardcore trip down memory lane, including plenty of classics like 95 Style and Eye Opener.

The next section (UK Hardcore) isn’t really my kind of thing, but keep going to hear the Freeform/NRG – maybe a bit heavy on the UK tunes, but it really has its moments, particularly the sequence of Architech’s Alanamra remix, Cyclone 2 and 4th Dimension.

The tracklist is included with the set, but here’s a quick copy/paste:

<Happy Hardcore / Piano Breakbeats>
01. On A Roll / Happy Rollers
02. Surrender / Eruption
03. Party Time / Dougal & Eruption
04. 95 Style / Happy Rollers
05. Six Days / Jimmy J & Cru-L-T
06. Big Bad Bass / Unknown & Heatwave
07. Luv U More (DJ Paul’s Forze Mix) / DJ Paul Elstak
08. Eye Opener / Brisk & Trixxy
<UK Hardcore>
09. Fell From The Stars / Dougal & Gammer feat. Stefan B.
10. Blue Anthem / Scott Brown
11. Future Shining / Darren Styles
12. Get Hype (Scott Brown Remix) / Dougal & Gammer
13. Drunk With Love / Euphoria
14. Timebomb / CLSM feat. Lisa Abbott
15. Pump This Party / Mark Smith & Gammer
16. Peak 1.1 / Darwin
17. Be Happy (Brisk & Vagabond Remix) / Eclipse
18. Accorabation / Ultravibes
<Freeform / Hard NRG>
19. Aurinkoon / Nomic
20. Danse Macabre / Invader & Shanty
21. Axis Mundi / Vagabond
22. Tribal Resistance / Kevin Energy
23. Alanamra (Arkitech Remix) / Alek Szahala
24. Cyclone 2 / Carbon Based & DJ Rx
25. 4th Dimension / Epyx & Cyrez
26. Voices Of Babylon / Alek Szahala
27. Hellion / Alabaster

Download here

Dreams Into Harder set on SoundCloud

Posted by PlasmaDancer on December 31, 2010
Posted in: Canadian, Drum & Bass, Japanese, Mixes, UK. 2 comments

PlasmaDancer – Dreams Into Harder, November 2010 by PlasmaDancer

It turns out that my Dreams Into Harder set is getting some surprisingly good feedback, so I’ve decided to put it up on SoundCloud for anyone who missed the original post. A few people have said that it sounds ‘fresh’, which luckily is just what I was going for – most of the tunes are hardly what you’d call new, but it was a fun break from the post-summer wasteland of the freeform scene.

I’m still rounding up tunes for the next mix, but I’m hoping to be done with it around the end of January. Fear not though, that one’ll be NRG/freeform-only.

This wasn’t the final post of the year that I was hoping for, but there’ll be some customary ‘Top 3’ lists coming in the next couple of days, as well as another post for the budding producers out there. For now then, massive thanks to everyone who has visited TYFTH in 2010 – this year it feels like people have really helped out/contributed more than ever, and of course I’m really grateful. Hopefully once the next mix is out and the TYFTH ‘free label’ gets into its stride (both on the to-do list for next month), we’ll have a few more recruits to the great little crew we’re building up here.

Happy New Year!

Sola – Dreams Into Harder, 20th November / Breakbeat set recorded

Posted by PlasmaDancer on November 27, 2010
Posted in: Canadian, Drum & Bass, Events, Japanese, UK. 4 comments

Last weekend was Dreams Into Harder, and despite the really low turnout/bit of admin chaos it was all great fun to take part in. In the end it turned out to be a good choice to go with breakbeat hardcore, what with everyone else playing high bpm trancey happy hardcore.

Standout set was DJ 490’s very technical happy hardcore, with NEMO’s Scouse House a close second. DJ Minagi’s Anison (anime soundtrack!) and hard trance was a thing to behold – I didn’t have a clue what was going on half the time, but he mixed it all amazingly well. My set was so much fun to play that I actually re-recorded it at home last night – click below for the tracklist/mp3 and some photos from the event.

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Thank You For The Horse on SoundCloud

Posted by PlasmaDancer on November 25, 2010
Posted in: Finnish, Japanese, Releases, UK. 7 comments

Rob.O.T.T – Sound & Fury by Thank You For The Horse

I’ve been meaning to do something a bit more productive with the ‘Tracks’ section for a while now, and thanks to the artists involved things are finally looking good for this brand new version. Instead of that messy collection of mediafire links, from now on the tracks will be up on their very own SoundCloud, which will make promoting/sharing tunes a lot easier. Hopefully this will make it a genuinely useful way of getting some of the newer guys some exposure – there will be links to it up on Facebook, among other things.

To kick off the revamp we have four fantastic tracks from Aquanox and Rob.O.T.T – how none of these have been signed up before I’m not too sure, but I’m incredibly grateful to both guys for making them public here. Aquanox’s Killer Loop will be familiar to a lot of people, a top quality tune with real pace to it and some brilliant acid lines. I was this close to playing at last month’s Romancer…

The other three tunes are from Hybridize’s Rob.O.T.T, but instead of his usual hard trance/hard dance, this time he’s taking on freeform! All three tunes nicely mix the UK and Finnish styles, and as you’d expect there are some great melodies, complete with plenty of freeform style filtering. My personal favourite is probably Sound & Fury, but don’t miss the haunted housecore of Creation or the awesome melodies of New Direction.

Thanks a million to both Aquanox and Rob once again. By the way, I’ve started ‘following’ a few fellow TYFTHers on SoundCloud, feel free to do the same if I haven’t found you yet!

DJ Shimamura – Tokyo Hardcore Music All Night Long

Posted by PlasmaDancer on November 18, 2010
Posted in: Japanese, Releases, UK. Leave a Comment

DJ Shimamura – Tokyo Hardcore Music All Night Long- RBM028A (forthcoming) by ReBuild_Music

Not really anything to do with freeform, but while researching some happier tunes for the Dreams Into Harder set I came across this upcoming track from DJ Shimamura. Due out on ReBuild, it’s a nice (if fairly standard) example of his style these days, but the thing that caught my attention was the breakdown. In amongst the chopped up amens is the melody that plays when trains arrive at Mejiro station, the nicest place in central Tokyo (and coincidentally where I live).

Electronic Exclusives 18

Posted by PlasmaDancer on November 14, 2010
Posted in: Canadian, Finnish, Releases, UK. Leave a Comment

The very last batch of releases from freeform stalwart Electronica Exposed are almost here, and the Six Feet Underground compilation is looking especially nice. As well as a lot of unreleased Shanty material and a new Cyrez edit of Twisted Faith, look out for one of Dye In Sound’s latest tracks, the filtertastic Extended. I played it a few weeks ago in my short ustream set – it’s definitely one for Twisted Freq fans to check out. Take a look at the complete tracklist and order the CD here.

Ultimate Worldwide Freeform

Posted by PlasmaDancer on November 3, 2010
Posted in: Finnish, Japanese, Releases, UK. 6 comments

The two-CD Ultimate Worldwide Freeform is finally ready, this time covering just about every angle of the freeform scene. Standout tracks for me are obviously Aurora, Inexistenz and Alek Szahala’s Ascend to the Stars, while Sam One and Grimsoul have both come up with quality hard-trance influenced tunes. The NEC CD isn’t one that I’ll be using in my sets, but for those into their UK freeform it looks like a very good lineup.

Thanks and respect go to Thumpa for taking a look at the Japanese scene this time around – the album is set for release on the 21st of this month, but preorders are already possible here and here.

ReBuild CD

01. Grimsoul – Turn On The Heat

02. Alek Száhala – Ascend To The Stars

03. Creative Synergy – Beware Of My Trance (Ponder Remix)

04. Mozz & Thumpa – Techno Control

05. Aryx – Aurora

06. DJ Noriken – Lucia

07. Sam One – Break The Rules

08. Voycey & Douglas – Surface Of The Sun (Peaks & Pinnacle Remix)

09. Nomad – Lose It

10. Betwixt & Between – Inexistenz

11. Peaks & Pinnacle – Dynamo Cookie (Douglas Remix)

NEC CD

01. Douglas Feat. Rhona – FM-220

02. Kevin Energy Feat. E-Zero – Acid Nova

03. Endemic – Hurricane

04. Eryk Orpheus – Empty

05. Kevin Energy & A.B – Piranha

06. Endemic & Lost Soul – Voice Of The Eclipse

07. A.B & SynthWulf – The Cleansing

08. Amplitude & A.B – Toxic

09. S3RL & SynthWulf – I Am The DJ

10. Nick 235 & Solution Feat. Rhona – Augmented Reality

11. Lost Soul – Zombie With A Chainsaw (Little Fella Remix)