Here’s the first news from this month’s NRGetic Romancer, and well worth waiting for – DJ Yousuke’s solo set. This could his best set for a while, and the first few tracks are just fantastic, building up a brilliant atmosphere. I haven’t got a tracklist handy, but it’s mostly UK-styled freeform, and even if you’re not into that sort of thing I urge you to give it a listen, it really is good stuff.

Download here

I have another mix or two waiting in the wings, and so if/when I get permission, those’ll be on the upload too.

Tokyo Hardcore Construction is almost happening as we speak – I can’t make it this time, but my girlfriend is probably going. Anyway, for folk like me who can’t get to the event, we can create the same atmosphere in our own homes (minus huge speakers and a crew of cybergoths) with a huge crop of gabber/NRG/all sorts of other stuff mixes over at the THC archive. I must admit that I haven’t had time to listen to all the sets yet, but for freeform fans the standout will surely be Betwixt & Between’s hard NRG mix, the tracklist of which is as follows:

1. Nomic – Make Me Real
2. Alek Szahala – Superstition
3. Marco V – Godd (Tyranoid/Strongstream extended remix)
4. Eclipse – Stairway to Brooklyn
5. Distressed Frequencies – Victimized
6. Alek Szahala – Anmitzcuacua
7. Alek Szahala – Firecloud

Pretty tasty, no? It gives a really good idea of Betwixt’s NRG/freeform influences, and is very nicely put together – dark and extremely hard, with an interesting choice of Stairway to Brooklyn in the middle there.

I also have to recommend the mixes by Lunch (quite possibly the finest gabber DJ in Tokyo) and Kanon, also a master of ‘real’ dark gabber (rather than the demented anime-style efforts of Sharpnel et al).

As far as I know this set wasn’t recorded, but I thought it might be worth posting up Alabaster’s tracklist from Touhou Carnival a week ago. As you can see, it’s not only NRGetic Romancer and Hell’s Gate which are pushing the Finnish sound – this set looks fantastic, and I really hope that I can make it to the next event (as Betwixt also plays there, too). Playing V8 as the second track is about as hardcore as it gets, and  Hellfire followed by Zable Fahr sounds like a really interesting mix.

1. Alabaster – Reality Haze
2. Pain on Creation – V8
3. Alabaster – Machine Messiah
4. DJ Rx – Hellfire
5. Alabaster – Zable Fahr
6. Alabaster – Forgotten Ancient
7. Alabaster – The Barrel Maze
8. Pain on Creation – Mortality
9. Alabaster – Void