I’m obviously no use as a news source right now, but the endless commutes and post-work gazing into space is at least giving me a chance to catch up on some excellent sets. I have a few to post up now, so let’s begin with Son of Sam’s Sinistry selection of melodic/twisted tracks.

That opening rock-solid mix between Reborn and Polaris had me immediately convinced, but using Starfall as the set’s centrepiece is just fantastic – it remains one of my all-time favourite Alek tunes. The mix into Air shows that a lot of thought went into this mix, and there’s a great flow here. It might be a bit of a freeform cliche these days to finish a set with gabber, but when it works this well, why not?

Overall this was a brilliant set and a really nice surprise – with the one like BEEZEE also dropping some trademark sounds, Sinistry might just have been the best UK event ever for ‘intelligent freeform’. With Aryx and myself trying to do the same at Munted! (a much-delayed look back at that will be coming one of these days), there’s real hope that deeper sounds will play a much bigger role in the scene’s development.

1. jD-KiD – Reborn [Re-Born Beats]
2. Aryx – Polaris [Watchtower]
3. jD-KiD & Javi DJ – Purnima [B-Form Beats]
4. Alek Szahala – Deimos [FINRG]
5. Le Dos-On – Obsidian [Relentless Digital]
6. Paocala – Starfall [Electronica Exposed]
7. Le Dos-On – Air [Relentless Digital]
8. Substanced – Ghost of the Future [Watchtower]
9. jD-KiD & DJ Corr – Carinae [ReBuild Music]
10. Korsakoff – Pink Noise [Cloud 9 Dance]
11. Dyprax – Murder & Crime [MoH]
12. AniMe – Cracks [Traxstorm]

PlasmaDancer – Lucky Lotus, August 2013 by Plasmadancer on Mixcloud

I’ve had a couple more requests to put my Lucky Lotus set online, so here it is! The artists/DJs on the FINRG SoundCloud are pretty self policing these days in terms of what goes up there, and as in this case I don’t think the set is anywhere near the quality we should expect from FINRG I’ve dusted off Mixcloud instead. That’s not to say I was disappointed with what I came up with, mind, just it was always intended to be a one-off event-style set that showed off a few styles, not one for repeated listens.

Anyway, I was a bit unsure about where to pitch this one, but decided to go for some melodic sounds to start with (Beati Mortui aside) and then hit listeners with some harder, darker tracks. It got a pretty good response at the time, and I heard people picking out certain parts of the set that appealed to them, which is really what I was aiming for – if it inspired non-freeform fans to seek out some new tunes, then mission accomplished.

Have a listen and see what you think – apologies in advance for Face the Destiny – Neurotic and Toybox – Human Hater, those are the kind of lazy transitions I hate, though the rest of the set has a few old favourite connections from Ustream and Romancer.

Been quite busy this week, and too occupied with Codex prep to check out all the mixes that have appeared recently. Here are a couple though, and I’ll catch up on the rest asap – there’re some really tasty sets floating around at the moment.

First up is Dyzphazia’s Lucky Lotus set, a really interesting hour that eases into the freeform after a slower start. I went for a similar ‘rookie friendly’ start, but here the lower bpm works especially well, then moving up through the gears and eventually finishing with Hydra. Lots of newer stuff on show throughout, but for me the standout moment of the set was definitely the Skullcrush – Anthrax Injection combo, a really nice mix of melodies and nastiness that flows very well. A shame it doesn’t continue in the same vein a little longer, but you won’t find a bad tune in the tracklist, that’s for sure (though Pink Magic doesn’t actually seem to be in there..?).

1. Marilyn Manson – Resident Evil Main Theme (J-Gear Bootleg) [CDr]
2. Wyrm & Surtr – Tesseract [Electrode]
3. Cosmic Gate – Back to Earth (Alchemiist Bootleg) [CDr]
4. Alek Szahala – Lagash (Original Mix) [CDr]
5. Betwixt & Between – East of Eden [CDr]
6. Substanced & Alchemiist – Skullcrush (Transcend & Dyzphazia Remix) [F/C FiNRG]
7. Alchemiist – Anthrax Injection [Smiling Corpse]
8. Epyx & Cyrez – Unohdetut 2011 [Electrode]
9. Yuki Kajiura – Mezame (Nomic Bootleg) [CDr]
10. Proteus & Kevin Energy – London Helsinki Underground (Proteus Warcry Remix) [NuEnergy]
11. Qygen – gXX-XeY-XQn 2010 [CDr]
12. Alek Szahala – Pink Magic [FiNRG]
13. Betwixt & Between – Hydra (Long Edit) [Hardcore Tano*C]