I’ve already seen some photos from this weekend’s FINRG & FUTURISTICS in Tampere, and at the time of writing you’ve still got a chance to download Epyx & Cyrez’s mix to tie in with the event.
This is one of those rare sets that I haven’t listened to all the way through before posting, but from my quick check of the connections it was sounding fantastic – heavy on the NRG and a transition from Alek Szahala’s Mageslayer that’s really top level. Grab it while you can!
It’s been a while since we heard from Decion, so here’s a short but atmospheric clip from the end of last year. The trancier-than-usual track in the background is High Contrast by Matt Rains.
It’s been tough not to mention this until now, but in June I’ll be joining forces with the Munted! crew again for my first UK set! The event will be Munted’s first of the year, and I’m sure everyone will agree that the lineup’s looking pretty fantastic. Headlining is UK legend Sharkey, followed by UK freeform stalwart Douglas, but here at TYFTH we have to give special, massive kudos to the Munted! crew for supporting the deeper side of the freeform sound with the booking of Aryx and Endemic. Midas is also no stranger to our corner of the scene, while the UK crew are well catered for with Arkitech, A.B and Laith.
I’ll obviously be doing my very best to show what the darker, emotional side of freeform can do – it’s beyond exciting to have a chance to play to a UK crowd, but especially at a time when more labels, DJs and ravers are giving deeper sounds a chance. Hopefully Proteus at next month’s Sinistry will also convert more to the dark side, before we get going in June.
I’m hugely grateful to Munted! for supporting me and the Finnish/Japanese sound over the past year, and determined to repay them in London with as good a set as I can manage. It’ll also be awesome to see as many of the UK/Europe crew as possible on home soil, especially as Finland next month isn’t looking too likely (more on that another time). As an ex-resident of Battersea and Southfields I’m also looking forward to seeing south London for the first time in about 8 years.
There are plenty of exciting events over the next couple of months, but keep an eye on the Munted! event page in the meantime for travel/ticket info and all sorts of animal-based hijinks.
We’re indebted to Alderz again for this awesome find – 50 minutes of madness from a youthful Proteus and Lab 4 at FreckShow in Australia. While the Lab 4 second half definitely won’t disappoint, it’s fantastic to see Proteus in full flow (complete with dreads), building up a set of NRG before dropping the early FINRG/Proteus anthems.
I’ve now had a chance to listen to both sets from last weekend’s SC podcast, and it’s a big recommend for anyone else who missed the live event. Wyrm’s set in particular is a fantastic hour that sets a new standard of mixing modern freeform with dark psy, obviously really well-considered with a nice consistent theme all the way through. This is helped by a couple of amazing Qygen tracks – 60Hz Power Rave has to be one of the most impressive tracks so far this year. As always, it’s hard to combine harder freeform with psy, but Wyrm does a fine job, and the trippy breakbeat of Funkin’ Jungle is a lovely selection.
Horzi’s set is more conventional, but maybe that’s no bad thing after the experimental sounds of Wyrm. Heavy on the brand-new FINRG releases, there’s also an interesting choice of the two Elementz Records releases towards the end, as well as a pitched up Fist of the North Star.
A great show then – wander along to the Smiling Corpse site for tracklists and download links.
Just in time to quickly mention tonight’s (GMT) Smiling Corpse show, featuring Horzi alongside this edition’s host, Wyrm. Once again I probably won’t be able to make the live broadcast – those who can should head along to Krafty Radio for what’ll surely be an excellent couple of hours.
Thanks to DJ Yediah I saw this incredible video for the first time this morning and couldn’t resist posting it up. Filmed at a massive-looking event in Moscow way back in 2010, this is classic Proteus and yet another lesson in feeling the music during a DJ performance.
Going off the usual track for a fashion-related post here, but this is well worth a look for anyone interested in the wider Japanese scene. Style Arena is usually the place to avoid go for street snaps of Tokyo’s teenage fashion victims, but this month the site ran a feature on ‘Candy Ravers’, the 90s UK happy-hardcore influenced crew that can always be spotted at Tokyo’s hard dance/hardcore events.
Unsurprisingly, over the years I’ve bumped into all of the ravers featured – KANGU is a very good friend of mine and a long-time supporter of my sets and NRGetic Romancer. Club dancer RINKO is well-known to anyone in the Tokyo hardcore scene and another Romancer regular, while 7 was a big supporter of the darker/harder freeform DJs during the 2009-2010 golden era. Take a look here for all the photos, along with some (translatable) text to accompany each raver.
It’s finally time for a look back at 10 Years of FINRG and my escapades in Finland and the UK – part of the reason for this write-up’s massive delay is the difficulty of doing justice to what was an utterly stupendous trip from start to finish. This might well be a long one (and in fact is version 3 of the post), but feel free to skip through to the event section where you’ll find my tracklist and a few other bits and pieces of behind the scenes-related stuff.
Important edit: Apologies to Raver71 for not crediting his photo of the Senssi decor. Check here for his awesome album from the night, and click here for the equally great Sessions2 photos, where you’ll find me looking especially psychopathic.
Thanks to the Munted! organisers I’ve got permission to upload my Betwixt & Between tribute set a little earlier than originally planned, which sets us up nicely for a little belated Christmas present tomorrow.
This was one of the most difficult sets so far to put together, not only from the emotional side of things, but also in terms of track selection. Any Betwixt fan would agree that you’d need a lot more than an hour to do justice to his sound, but here I tried to at least give a taste of his different styles, while also including a few favourites and some unusual stuff for the more knowledgeable crew in a set that would still get people dancing/head-nodding. Ambitious stuff then, and I’m sure there are a lot of omissions that people thought were must-plays, but thankfully it went down well during the event and has had some nice feedback since.
Given the circumstances, to start I went for some melodic tracks that really show the emotional side of Kaoru’s sound – it was hard to look past Stairway to Solstice as the first tune, while Isolation has always been my favourite ‘new’ tune on the Nanosecond Eternity album. After stumbling on the Tout est Bien – Burst! combo, I decided on a harder detour to show off his other styles, before going (almost) freeform-only for the second half. Then it was a matter of judging when to throw in the big anthems like Zusammengehorigkeit, while happily the City of Solitude – Reincarnation connection near the end (one of my favourites) was a big success on the night.
01. Betwixt & Between – Stairway to Solstice
02. Betwixt & Between – Tankobu Hesotarou no Hourou
03. Betwixt & Between – Isolation
04. Betwixt & Between – Self Extortion
05. Betwixt & Between – Tout est Bien (Sein zum Tode)
06. Poly Calamity – Burst!
07. Poly Calamity – Unam Sanctum
08. Betwixt & Between – Nanosecond Eternity
09. Betwixt & Between – I Think We Can Go To The Moon
10. Betwixt & Between – Zusammengehorigkeit
11. RaverRose – Broken Visage
12. RR-ThermalForce – Moving Flare (Betwixt & Between edit)
13. Betwixt & Between feat Yukacco – Nothing Compares 2 U
14. Betwixt & Between – City of Solitude
15. Betwixt & Between – Reincarnation
16. Poly Calamity – Decillion Catastrophes
17. Betwixt & Between – Flowless
I stopped myself from playing promos simply because they’re promos, or anthems that wouldn’t have suited the flow of the set, but that means I still have a lot of tunes that didn’t fit into this mix. Sometime soon, then, I’ll be playing an alternative tribute on Ustream with some of the tracks that didn’t make it into the real set.
Finally, huge thanks to Munted! for the chance to play at a great event, and special thanks to all the listeners and chatroom ravers who stayed until 4am GMT to hear my set and pay tribute to Kaoru. I hope he would have approved of this mix – I owe him such a lot, and his memory and music will always be part of what I do in this scene.
There’ll be a roundup of the other sets once they’re all online – stay tuned.