Mixes

In Praise of Shadows CD 1 Track 1: Proteus – Monochrome

Posted by PlasmaDancer on June 29, 2016
Posted in: Japanese, Mixes, Releases, Uncategorized. 4 comments

And so it finally begins – I’ll be sharing an In Praise of Shadows track preview each day for the rest of this week and into the next, beginning with Proteus’ Monochrome. As the earlier master of this track will be familar to most of you, today’s post will also introduce TYFTH’s new logo and a preview of the artwork.

Unfortunately the blog still isn’t ready for the cosmetic surgery needed to really do the art justice, so instead I’ll point you towards SoundCloud, Facebook and Twitter, where there’s now some unified brand-identity action going on.

The backgrounds show off a small part of In Praise of Shadows’ cover, but seeing the entire image is something else altogether. To say it nails the atmosphere I was hoping for is an understatement – you can almost hear the music just by looking at it.

I’m also enormously happy with the logo. It has the balance of aggression, moodiness and slight delicacy that I was hoping for, and despite being effective wherever it’s placed, also manages to look like it was designed specifically for this release.

TYFTH still takes priority, but I’ll be adding plenty of info to the new Facebook page in the near future (not least the release date and ordering links). I’ll also be more active on the label Twitter account, as it could be a nice supplement to the blog if life continues to be as hectic as it has been recently. Please feel more than free to share posts and links with whoever you think might (or might not, come to think of it) be interested.

Finally, back to Monochrome – I could hardly have asked for a better prologue to the album, especially as I’ve been talking with a few people recently about how NRG and freeform could potentially grab all kinds of new audiences with the occasional drop in bpm (similar thoughts led to my Dark Alternative set a while back). Dark and beautiful, it’s just the kind of track I was hoping for when I first pitched the project to Proteus, and this improved master really does it justice.

As always, don’t hold back with the feedback, thoughts and suggestions – thanks again for your patience, and I’ll be back tomorrow with the second of the track previews.

Lucky Lotus Online Music Festival 6

Posted by PlasmaDancer on June 25, 2016
Posted in: Events, Japanese, Mixes, Releases, USA. 3 comments

A little last-minute, but Shimotsukei and I will appearing this afternoon on the Lucky Lotus Festival at 15:10 GMT (00:10 JST). S3RL will be up before us, while Lab 4, Guld and Morita Yuuhei will be coming later. The festival is already in full swing, and with Evolutionize and Byproduct also playing towards the end of the day, Saturday looks to be a great one.

I’m going to do my best to be in the chat for our set, and as things have been pretty quiet here lately it would be lovely to catch up with any Horsers in the vicinity. See the next post for some In Praise of Shadows info, but it’ll also be worth tuning in today for a preview of something that’ll appear on the album.

ALIAS A.K.A. – Freeform Remixes

Posted by PlasmaDancer on June 16, 2016
Posted in: Finnish, Mixes, Releases, UK. Leave a Comment

A few things to catch up on, starting with an impressive looking release from Alias A.K.A. More familiar to most of us as Shanty, Alias’ album is a freeform take on twelve of his house, breakbeat and trance tracks, with production duties taken on by a broad range of the scene’s artists.

It’s this diversity that’s the selling point of the compilation – a real showcase of Alias’ taste in freeform, with everything from Qygen’s psychedelics to some very strong contributions from the UK crew. Alchemiist’s frantic rework of Inescapable Fatalism deserves special mention for representing the FINRG sound, but there’s lots to like here. CD2 is a mixed version of all the tracks, something likely to be appreciated by the car/home listening brigade.

The album is up for pre-order here until the 26th of this month, and as it’s only after that production numbers will decided, showing some support right now makes lots of sense.

In Praise of Shadows – Update 4

Posted by PlasmaDancer on April 7, 2016
Posted in: Events, Finnish, Japanese, Mixes, Releases. 2 comments

I know, it’s already April and still no release – but it’s pretty good news once again as the ‘to-do’ list gets shorter by the week. A couple of days ago I received the mastered version of the CD2 mix, as well as the final master of one track that underwent some tweaks to boost the feeling of speed. I’m really happy with both, and now that the admin rabbit-hole of the liner notes has been dealt with too, we’re back with only the design work to be finished up.

Some fun stuff I’ll be doing in the meantime is deciding where the track markings should be placed in the mixed set, and chopping up the unmixed track preview clips that’ll go online before too long. The plan is to get both jobs finished before the end of the weekend, and then be poised to throw all the necessary at the CD production folk as soon as the graphics are ready.

We’re definitely not far off now…

Midas – Freeformaniacs Round 21

Posted by PlasmaDancer on April 7, 2016
Posted in: Drum & Bass, Finnish, Japanese, Mixes, UK, USA. Leave a Comment

It’s a bit of an injustice that Midas hasn’t had more mentions on TYFTH, as he’s been doing a brilliant job over the years of sneaking Finnish and Japanese sounds into his sets, both online and around the UK. In fact I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some of the UK freeform crew have Midas to thank for their first exposure to FINRG.

You won’t often hear Wizbit and Alek Szahala in the same mix, but Midas was on top form for his recent-ish Freeformaniacs set, deftly negotiating his way from nutty breakbeat hardcore to some classics of the darker side. I’ve been known to dabble in breakbeat hardcore myself, and it’s hard to resist some of these throwbacks to the amen-heavy mid-nineties, especially when mixed this well. Some teeth-gritting might be needed through the tracks that start sounding a bit too nu-skool, but we’re soon into some of the best of current UK freeform, including Transcend’s excellent Candyman remix.

Midas has often pushed the Hybridize era nasty-but-melodic sound, and here it works as a nice bridge into the darker final section. Morokai, Fluorite, Icy Clouds, Alchemiist’s Pain remix – you really couldn’t ask for a much better selection if you’re looking to introduce folk to our side of things. Quite the journey of a set, and one that’d easily grace the peak time of many a UK event, I reckon.

ALIAS A.K.A. – DJ Mix 048 – 48 Hours

Posted by PlasmaDancer on March 30, 2016
Posted in: Drum & Bass, Mixes, UK. 3 comments

Let’s go non-freeform for the next in the long list of sets I’ve been checking out recently – Alias A.K.A.’s mammoth look back at late-90s intelligent drum and bass.

That 1997-1999 era was when the intelligent sound started heading along the road to oblivion though, and by 2000 the melancholy and deeper melodies had mostly been abandoned in favour of faster, less complex drums and endless sweeping pads. I felt at the time that this was a real last hurrah for the subgenre, and Alias has picked out every single one of my favourites in an excellently mixed set.

Coincidentally the other day I listened again to one of Bukem’s finest mixes from this era (Progression Sessions), which obviously had an influence on Alias’ tracklist, but there are also plenty of well selected jazzy tracks amongst the spacey tunes. The opening combo of The Rhyme Goes On and Do What You Gotta Do sets the standard, and the rest of the set does a fine job of living up to it. Occasional clashing pads aside, there are some brilliant connections in here –  Mind Games followed by Planetary Funk Alert is a worthy centrepiece for the set.

A lot of the freeform crew might already have been listening to early NRG and trancecore by this stage, but this is essential listening for anyone with an interest in deeper dance music, especially if you missed these tunes at the time.

Hellfury – Freeformaniacs Round 22

Posted by PlasmaDancer on March 30, 2016
Posted in: Finnish, Japanese, Mixes, UK. Leave a Comment

It’s very encouraging to see Hellfury’s continued support for the emotional side of freeform – the first half of his recent Freeformaniacs set is loaded with impressively mixed, long-break heavy tracks and downtempo interludes. The overall atmosphere ticks just about every box for me in terms of what quality freeform needs to be – thoughtful, melancholy, but also aggressive when the time is right.

The interludes here take it to an extreme, however, and it got me wondering what sort of a crowd would go for this in a live environment. I’m convinced there’s a club audience for this kind of break-heavy play style, but maybe somewhere other than the hardcore scene…thoughts for another time maybe, but it’s a very promising direction and I’d love to see Hellfury and others develop it further. Being picky I’d suggest that half-speed downtempo tracks that blend smoothly with the freeform would take it to the next level, but Hellfury’s selections here are a quality start.

The second half of the set is perhaps a nod to the upcoming N.E.M.M. compilation, with far older trancecore/freeform tracks mixed impressively into some newer material from Qygen. The combination works really well, and the energetic shift in tone from the first half opens up the set to even more potential listeners.

Quite the demonstration of how diverse a single set can be, then, and very highly recommended.

Cuedy – Freeformaniacs Round 21

Posted by PlasmaDancer on March 18, 2016
Posted in: Finnish, Japanese, Mixes, UK, USA. Leave a Comment

Label shenanigans are maybe one instrument too many for the TYFTH one-man band, but the past month has seen a lot of quality mixes and I’ll be highlighting a few when I have the chance.

First up is Cuedy’s recent Freeformaniacs set – an hour of standard-issue TYFTH-friendly tracks (which is a very good thing), punctuated by two or three really nice transitions and a couple of tracklist surprises.

Obvious shouts to Cuedy for starting with Betwixt & Between’s Eternal[l]y, followed by a really good connection in Alchemiist’s Pain remix. The rest of the set alternates between nastier filters and melodic interludes, and I was glad to see that classic tracks were given special attention in terms of transitions – we’ve all been listening to them for so long now, they really should. Eryk Orpheus’ Pyjama Sonata was a nice follow up to Supriya, while Alabaster’s Flamberge was the big surprise of the set. It was the final connection that really got me though, as the slightly chaotic blend of filtered riffs from Xerosis to Super Sonic shows off the older FINRG sound at its finest.

In Praise of Shadows – Update 3

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 16, 2016
Posted in: Japanese, Mixes, Releases. 4 comments

Ok, some good and slightly-less good news in this update – you might have noticed that things have been rather quiet around here recently, but I have been diligently plugging away behind the scenes whenever I’ve had the chance.

There’s a bit of a silver lining to the recent slow down though, as an artist got in touch with another track submission a couple of weeks ago. It’s a superb tune and a very worthy addition that I’m more than happy to find room for. In fact I’ve decided to do things Alabaster-style with CD 2, and so now the mix will be followed by two unmixed tracks. Both are remixes of a couple of classics, and nice counterpoints to the 10 unmixed tunes on CD 1.

You might remember that the graphic design was causing some delays last month, but there has since been some logo action and it’s now going through a few tweaks to decide the final version. Instead I’m to blame for the delay this month, as finalising the mix tracklist has taken longer than expected, obviously delaying the mountain of text that our beleaguered designer will somehow fit onto the digipack.

The tracklist is now 95% decided, but my schedule has meant that practice runs have been very hard to make room for this week. I’m quite happy with it, but would love to squeeze in a couple of different artists before the final recording. Label diversity’s not a problem though, with 7 or 8 represented at the last count, and releases ranging from 2004 to 2015.

The next steps, then, are to get the mix recorded (this week or next), sort out the final version of the liner notes/tracklist, and get both to the designer asap. After that we’re ready for production, so previews and incessant promotion aren’t far away. Thanks for your patience, and of course feel free to get in touch with any questions in the meantime.

Top 3 Mixes of 2015

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 9, 2016
Posted in: Finnish, Mixes, Top Tens, UK, USA. 3 comments

I’ve done plenty of mix listening over the past couple of months to catch up with what was an excellent year of sets in 2015. Some strong releases have kept a lot of sets fresh, but there have also been some quality older selections and an overall higher level of mix transitions than we’ve seen for a couple of years. Here, then, are my favourite three.

3. Alek Szahala – Live @ CODEX5, Tokyo 2015

This was a special set for all sorts of reasons, but even putting to one side Alek’s return to Tokyo this is a wonderful hour that showcases a lot of different styles through more than a decades’ worth of tracks. There are some surprises thanks to a few unusual connections, while the contrast between the darker and lighter sides of Alek’s sound is very nicely put together.

2. Dyzphazia – Hardcore Summer Bash 2015

Despite the new releases this year one of my favourite sets was this primer in older FINRG, delivered by Dyzphazia. Very solid mixing lets the tracks speak for themselves, and the selection of aggressive filtered tracks is nicely broken up with some classic, melancholy melodies. If you know someone who has yet to get into freeform, then pointing them towards this set would be a sensible first step.

1. Solvynt – Lucky Lotus Online Electronic Music Festival 5

Solvynt’s set is another one that lets most of the tracks play out to their full length, but the eventual transitions are often something very special indeed. The track selection is pure TYFTH, and even if the second half can’t quite maintain the levels of the first, the flow of the set is superb as it builds to the Stance – Taranis finale. Definitely my favourite set of the year, and the good news is that Solvynt is back on the Lucky Lotus lineup for this year’s event (more on that soon).

Honourable mentions:

Olly Addictive & Akumie, Shimotsukei, Orphic, Alchemiist