Brionac will definitely be the most familar track on the compilation to most people, both from my sets and elsewhere as various promo versions have been floating around for a while now. Here though is Hase’s definitive final version, professionally mastered to bring it right up to 2016 levels.
There’s no doubt that this has been one of my favourite tracks of the past few years, and I’m extremely happy that Hase’s glorious sound will finally see a wider audience.
Back when thoughts of TYFTH as a label were in the very earliest stages, Guld was the first person I went to for opinions. Not only did he come up with some quality advice and encouragement, when the time later came for submissions he went well beyond the call of duty with Perkele!, which might be one of his best tracks so far.
More than keeping up the production levels of his recent releases, Perkele! does something a bit different with its deeper breakdown and a really brutal finale (not in the preview, but it’s worth waiting for). Some cheeky sampling and nods to the classic Nightmare Freak add a extra element to the manic filters, a great combination.
In Praise of Shadows’ second track will hopefully be a nice surprise to anyone who fell in love with Four Beast, One Immortal and the rest of Einhander’s ferocious, twisted NRG. He’s back, and I’m honoured that Einhander has agreed to make both a return to NRG and his first official release on Thank You For The Horse.
I can honestly say that I love every track on the compilation, but Storm Coming has to be very close to the top of the list. The aggression, industrial percussion and crazed filters couldn’t be better, and even the intro/outro is a step above most NRG tracks. Playing after Alek Szahala at CODEX last year, there’s a reason I used Storm Coming as the opener – even unmastered it laid down a marker that kept the crowd with me from the start.
As an aside, massive thanks to everyone for the support on the TYFTH Facebook page. It was so encouraging to see how enthusiastic everyone is for the release, and I just want to get things finished up as soon as possible. I’ve gone ahead and said a ‘summer’ release date, which whether it ends up being next month or August is almost certainly doable.
See you tomorrow for track 3!
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.
Ok, false alarm re. the previews – over the weekend Real Life intervened in fine style, and I’ve had to postpone. Depending how things go, I may be able to start uploading as early as Wednesday, but keep an eye on here or twitter/facebook for the real announcements.
Incidentally, this won’t affect the progress on the album itself, as that’s almost entirely out of my hands (and has been for a long while). It would still be nice to give everyone something to see and hear at long last, so stay tuned for the rest of this week.
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.
My first set of the year will be next month, as I’ve very kindly been invited back to join the freeform contingent of the Lucky Lotus festival. With things being a bit fraught these days I haven’t had time for a full set’s worth of prep, so instead I’m really excited to be putting together a b2b with Shimotsukei. We’ve started work on it and already there are a few surprises in store…
The rest of the event looks like the best LL so far, with a fabulous roster on the freeform/NRG side. Nomic, Alabaster, Guld, B.R.K., Lab 4, Raqhow, Hyphen, Evolutionize, and Solvynt – you couldn’t ask for much more than that. Other highlights would be a new Byproduct set, Dark by Design, and a very rare recorded set from Kanon.
The facebook event page is the place to check the full lineup and eventual timetable info, but we’ll of course find room for it here too, as and when.
Part of the reason for all this silence is me desperately scrabbling around behind the scenes, of course, but truth be told there hasn’t been an awful lot that’s caught my eye in the last few weeks. The release of SOLIDCORE IX is pretty noteworthy though, as it features Chemical Infusion, a very promising track from Hyphen.
The compilation was actually released today and might be worth seeking out, but reflecting the strength of the hardcore scene in Japan right now there isn’t too much else of use for the freeform crowd.
As a footnote, In Praise of Shadows took another big step forwards a day or two ago, and we’re on the brink of placing the order with the CD manufacturers. If I get myself organised there might be some other announcements later today…
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…
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.