Japanese

Solvynt – Lucky Lotus Online Electronic Music Festival 7

Posted by PlasmaDancer on September 4, 2017
Posted in: Finnish, Japanese, Mixes, UK. Leave a Comment

That Solvynt’s was the first Lucky Lotus set I checked out after the event will come as no surprise to those who’ve been listening to his work over the past few years. This one may well feature one of his strongest tracklists so far, even if the tradeoff turns out to be fewer show-stopping transitions.

Starting with Tigris sets the tone – this set is heavy on NRG but at freeform speeds, leading to some really nice connections I never would have considered. The early combo of Desolated Dreams and Prelude works well, while the long combination of Inquisition and Get Fire! has its moments without quite coming together as hoped. Perkele! into Shine is transition of the set though, one of those moments when the line between DJ and creator blurs slightly . Excellent, excellent stuff, followed by a really effective introduction of Brionac via Full Metal Jacket.

Matter of Fact arrives in slightly uncomfortable style, but The Brain Controls Pain transitions far more smoothly, introducing a final third of melodic classics. Skybreak is a great choice, and I love the use of Celestea’s final filters with Gravity’s Rainbow.

Another quality set then, and the nit-picking over a couple of moments is just that – only because Solvynt continues to be one of the few freeform DJs prepared to experiment with such ambitious track combinations. Inspirational stuff that should be required listening, especially if you’re planning a mix yourself.

Adrenaline TV Season 0 Episodes 1 and 2

Posted by PlasmaDancer on August 6, 2017
Posted in: Events, Japanese, Mixes. Leave a Comment

Satoshi Honjo will be a name familiar to many, even if only for his Hannya schranz remix back in the day. He’s still very active though, both with Adrenaline and surprise appearances at darker Tokyo events like Dark Dimension. He and the Adrenaline crew look to be starting a video mix series, and while his set is a lot lighter than anything you’d expect at DD the second (nicely mixed) episode featuring K-Hole goes in a harder direction.

Proteus / Betwixt & Between / PlasmaDancer – Live @NRGetic Romancer

Posted by PlasmaDancer on July 14, 2017
Posted in: Events, Finnish, Japanese, Mixes. 3 comments

I took the chance to upload a few more NRGetic Romancer sets today, including a rare Proteus recording and the original Betwixt set that got me into freeform in the first place. Bringing up the rear is my old set from 2009 – all three confirm once again that Romancer’s atmosphere just couldn’t be beaten, and putting audio quality complaints to one side for now, I love reminiscing while hearing the crowd madness of these mic recordings.

The Proteus set is probably of most interest to many, recorded in 2007 at NRGetic Romancer’s 3rd anniversary. Although I don’t seem to have the other headlining sets from Guld and ADAM Lab 4, this one is a pretty special hour and a quarter that really shows what Proteus was all about at the time. Featuring plenty of the tracks on his then-upcoming The Nature of the Beast, the set also includes some excellent older NRG. I haven’t given a tracklist a try yet, but I’d love to know who’s responsible for the Manson remix around 16.17.

The Romancer playlist is pretty impressive already, but there might well be more to come…

B.R.K. feat GULD – Brothers Never Die (The Atomik Samurai)

Posted by PlasmaDancer on July 13, 2017
Posted in: Italian, Japanese, Releases. 1 comment

BRK’s keeping himself very busy these days, single-handedly propping up the NRG scene while we wait for some more releases. His latest is Brothers Never Die, a really nice collab with GULD that appeared on Ominous Digital at the end of last month.

The track is definitely BRK’s with GULD influence, but with BRK’s production coming on leaps and bounds by the month that’s no bad thing at all. It happily leans in the harder direction of tracks like Rhythm is a Dancer, while the breakdown really is quality – more emotion than we’re used to hearing from either artist, it surely goes into the ‘very best’ category of BRK’s growing back catalogue.

There’s a lot more to come from him this year, including on TYFTH when time allows.

Shimotsukei & PlasmaDancer – Lucky Lotus 7

Posted by PlasmaDancer on June 30, 2017
Posted in: Drum & Bass, Events, Finnish, Japanese, Mixes, USA. 3 comments

Apologies to the Lucky Lotus chat crew who have been expecting this for almost a week, but hopefully late is better than never – best we take a look at this one before we work through some other very promising sets from last weekend.

You might remember that we were both originally on the lineup to play individual sets, but what with one thing and another it worked out easiest for us both to go for another collab. Not that I’m complaining – last year was really good fun, while this one was a great way to get over a slight lack of recent freeform inspiration on my part. I have a darker set in the very early works, but last year’s In Praise of Shadows mix worked out so well I’m having trouble matching that for the time being.

Instead I thought a slightly more melodic approach might be interesting this time, including some of the freeform side of IPoS. Shimotsukei had her own ideas of course, and the set somehow worked out very nicely with minimal rejigging of the tracklist. My toughest job was to come up with pre-Fleshfest sequence which led me to settle on Some More. Years of diddling around with the track has still left me with no decent transitions, and so after spending time on all sorts of bizarre combos I gave up and went for a Grimsoul-only opening. We don’t hear his tracks often enough these days (Sentimental Pain aside), plus it was my first time to use any of the three in a set.

Shimotsukei’s sequences are all fantastic, from the standout NRG of Fleshfest – Mad Man to the so-mad-it-might-just-work finale of Voodoo to Xochitlan. Each sequence is made all the more impressive by the fact that Shimotsukei was mostly working with my completed sections of the set, once I had cheerily passed them on for her to struggle with.

My own favourite section is Syxautik to Ascend to the Stars, even if it’s the most roughly mixed (with some suspect levels that definitely didn’t seem as bad while mixing). I was trying a dark, deeper atmosphere there, with some more emotional sounds coming in as it progressed – I think it’s pretty successful, and a bit of a preview of the kind of thing I’d like from the next solo set.

It was very nice to see the positive reaction to the set in the LL chat, as well as exchange a few words with Horsers for the first time in far too long. Big thanks of course to LL for the invitation, and especially to Shimotsukei for all the hard work to get the set ready in time. I hope we’ve still got a few more collabs ahead of us, they’re going well so far.

I haven’t given up thoughts of the occasional live set stream (on chew, twitch, or somewhere else) and will keep you all posted, but I do at least have a new mix approaching completion – not the usual thing at all, but hopefully it’ll be the kick needed for a more productive second half of the year.

01. Grimsoul – Escape Forever [Electronica Exposed]
02. Grimsoul – Pahus [Electronica Exposed]
03. Grimsoul – Some More [Electronica Exposed]
04. Carbon Based, DJ Rx & Proteus – Fleshfest [FINRG]
05. Proteus, Ephexis & Ting – Angel of Hell [UHOtrax]
06. FEN Project – Mad Man [FINRG]
07. DJ Rx – Fisheye [FINRG]
08. Morita Yuuhei – The Ghost [Thank You For The Horse]
09. Alek Szahala – Dryad Machine (Hyphen Remix) [Thank You For The Horse]
10. Nightforce & Substanced – Operation Stardust [Electronica Exposed]
11. Pain on Creation – Mortality [FINRG]
12. Twisted Freq – Syxautik [Electronica Exposed]
13. Mellow Sonic – Paradoxon [Cosmicopia Records]
14. Alek Szahala – Ascend to the Stars (Qygen Remix) [ReBuild Music}
15. Anon – Voodoo (Power Mix) [White Label]
16. DJ Eclipse – Ultra World 5 [Bonkers Records]
17. Betwixt & Between – East of Eden (Remaster) [CDR]
18. Alek Száhala – Xochitlán [FINRG]

Hedonistik Ritual – FutureProof Sounds Mix Series 002

Posted by PlasmaDancer on June 30, 2017
Posted in: Finnish, Japanese, Mixes, UK. 2 comments

Pre-Lucky Lotus it was tough to find quality sets of newer freeform, making Hedonistik Rutual’s FutureProof set a very welcome one. It’s a beautifully put together hour or so with a very strong theme, managing to represent a few sides of the scene without things getting disjointed.

The opening is the real standout of the set to my ears – Hedonistik coming up with a lovely live edit of Byrgius that flows perfectly into Hyphen’s NEXUS. This excellent start leads into some more thoughtful melodic tracks (including Sentimental Pain, of course), with Transcend’s remix of Isn’t it all a little strange proving to be a nice bridge into the more UK-centric sounds.

Some might not float my boat, but both the mixing and selection are solid and really well considered – that use of Artifical Reality as another bridge to switch things up again is a nice touch. Finishing with Iron Sky and Hyphen’s Dryad Machine remix nails the energetic melancholy that always works for a finale, taking things back to the Alek-esque atmosphere of the opening.

Kudos to FutureProof for promoting a variety of sounds in their mix series, and to Hedonistik for showing how a skilled DJ can travel the middle ground between the UK and Finland in fine style.

01. Alek Szahala vs Aryx – Byrgius (Ritual Intro Edit)
02. Hyphen – NEXUS
03. Grimsoul – Sentimental Pain
04. Exemia – Aeroduel (Hyphen Remix)
05. Shokk – Isn’t it all a little strange (Transcend Bootleg)
06. Transcend & Hedonistik Ritual – Scorched
07. Aeon – Games with God
08. Ace Ventura – Neurochemistry
09. Transcend & Cyrax – I’ll show you the Darkside
10. Arkitech & Cyrax – Destroyer of Worlds
11. Transcend & Hedonistik Ritual- Mercator de Mortem
12. Substanced – Artifical Reality
13. Kokomochi – Iron Sky
14. Alek Szahala – Dryad Machine (Hyphen Remix)

Lucky Lotus Online Music Festival 7

Posted by PlasmaDancer on June 17, 2017
Posted in: Events, Finnish, Japanese, UK, USA. 1 comment

Only a week to go until this year’s Lucky Lotus, including my first recorded set of the year. Once again it’ll be a back to back with Shimotsukei, but this time with more of a freeform feel than our previous collab.

As always the lineup for the rest of the event is as good as you could hope for, happily with another good showing from the freeform scene. Names that leap out so far include Horzi, Hedonistik Ritual, Orphic, Alabaster, Solvynt, Decion, Byproduct and Alek Szahala, but as the festival runs for the usual three days it’s definitely worth checking the event page for updates and timetable info. Shimotsukei and I are scheduled for Saturday the 24th at 13:35 GMT.

Lucky Lotus – Summertime Dreams

Posted by PlasmaDancer on May 25, 2017
Posted in: Drum & Bass, Finnish, Goa / Psy, Japanese, Releases, UK, USA. Leave a Comment

I dread to think when the last post was – Life Stuff has meant some schedule juggling to fit everything in, and TYFTH has been suffering a bit as a result. Finally getting around to a few posts though, starting with the grand launch of Lucky Lotus’ CD compilation, Summertime Dreams.

The most significant news so far for freeform in 2017, this compilation has some very big names on board – Nomic, Qygen and Morita Yuuhei top the bill, with a very nicely produced contribution from Erkenfresh and Archari and Shimotsukei’s Dagor Dagorath adding some up-and-comers to the tracklist. With Shimotsukei in charge of things the rest of the release is about as eclectic as you’d expect, giving us a taste of everything from funkot to downtempo chillout, via Lab4’s excellent, roll-back-the-years NRG track, Moving To The Beat.

edit: I’ll blame posting rustiness for not mentioning something so important yesterday, but LL has announced that Qygen’s Crystal Cave will be his last freeform track. Talk about another huge loss to the scene, though the signs are that he’ll make a return to music of a different sort in the future.

Not really a release you can afford to miss, I’d say – it’s set for the end of June, but preorders are open already on the Lucky Lotus bandcamp and bigcartel sites.

datfile-039 – encode/decode

Posted by PlasmaDancer on April 22, 2017
Posted in: Japanese, Releases. 1 comment

Long time no speak, isn’t it? I’ve had a lot going on for the past couple of weeks, but all being well posts will be appearing more regularly from this weekend. There’s also a small mountain of music-related projects building up that I should really be putting into some sort of priority order.

In the meantime, here’s a new release from ikaurga_nex, buried inside a dat file records compilation. This is one of those albums that might not be doing much to float your boat overall, but Barbatos is a fine enough track to be worth the price of entry alone. Of course if the rest of the compilation’s chiptune and J-Core appeals then all the better – it’ll be available at M3 next weekend and is already buyable via Akiba-Hobby.