Ah…I completely forgot about this – Hardcore Nitro started 30 minutes ago at Club Heavy Sick, and is going for the very hard approach. You can see the genres on the flyer, and with DJs like Lunch, Redd, Red Ogre and AEMI, it’s very promising. I could just about make it if I rush out right now, but there might be a bit too much speedcore for me…200bpm I can manage fine, but once things get past 250 I don’t really know what’s going on. Recently Cogi and Red Ogre played me an amazing ‘trancecore’ speedcore tune though (at around 250-300bpm if I remember right), so maybe I just don’t know enough about the genre yet.

Anyway, I’ll regrettably give this one a miss tonight and get some mix practicing in instead, I think…

DJ Minagi has just announced a very tasty new event called Operation Karma, starting up next month. It looks like it’ll be just my kind of thing, with hardcore, trancecore, freeform, Hard NRG all catered for – and for this first event two of the best hardcore DJs in Tokyo have been drafted in too. First is Alabaster himself, who should be playing Finnish-styled freeform, while the second is Tokyo Hardcore Construction’s Kanon. Her selection really is fantastic, and added to Minagi’s set (which is sure to be Finnish/Japanese NRG/freeform too) this is one I must not miss.

Unusually, the venue is in Kawasaki (sandwiched between Tokyo and Yokohama), but it’s along my route to work every week and the journey isn’t much more than 20minutes or so from Shibuya, so that won’t be a problem. Definitely looking forward to this one.

Here’s an interesting one – on Saturday Guld and DJ Yousuke (plus Buzzmasta, I thought) will be playing at the oddly-named Foolish vol 1. The rest of the lineup seems much more relaxed, but I might be heading along – the 23rd is actually my birthday (argh), so it’d be nice to hear some NRG to lessen the pain of getting another year older.

Anyway, the interesting thing is the venue, OVO (er, ‘Originative Visual Organisation’, apparently) in Nakameguro. That area is one of my favourite spots for relaxing, but I’d never thought I’d be going there for an event.

Here at last is the roundup of last months’ NRGetic Romancer, including some great photos and videos courtesy of Soham. There might be a few more videos etc on the way in the future, so if anything especially exciting turns up I’ll make sure to post ’em later.

This time the attendance was a lot, lot lower than normal, but most of the really good dancers/glowstickers made it along and the atmosphere was very good. It actually turned into a bit of a ‘for those who know’ kind of event, with a lot of older tunes being played alongside the promos.

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I’ll be heading off to Studio Cube in a few hours for Tokyo Hardcore Construction, and here’s the preview video which I completely forgot to post up earlier. Another great showcase of the DJs and decor, this one also features one of my very favourite tunes at the moment: Kanon vs Lunch – You Controlling.

I’ve already written a bit about the West edition of Hardcore Tano*C 9th Strike, but here’s a video (and photo for the Osaka version) roundup of the artists involved. The Shibuya version was a quality event, and the next one is June, it seems, so I might be along to that too.

The lineup is looking good for the next Tokyo Hardcore Construction, with Betwixt & Between playing again. No DJ Stanfield though, it’d be good to see him playing out somewhere soon.

ACT：

Lunch (TOKYO HARDCORE CONSTRUCTION/S.H.C.)
NDE (NIGHTNARELAND)
Betwixt & Between (NRGetic Romancer)
Kanon (A.I.N.)
狗神 (NIGHTNARELAND)
DJ WILD PARTY (赤線企画)
DJ Technetium vs. MC Tyrant (Cis-Trance)
LALA (LoveScreamTerror/SUPER GABBERS)
DJ Takahashit (RODEO)

VJ：VX PASTA
Floor Decoration：ARTHUR
Movie & Report Work：TAK666 (Cradle to Grave)

Here are a couple of videos of the ‘super raver’ Detch (でっち／Decchi as he’s known here) at the last Tokyo Hardcore Construction. The first [above] shows his pretty amazing glowstick style….he often uses more throws and so on, but this clip is still a great example. He’s one of the very best dancers here, and can/could be found at Hell’s Gate, NRGetic Romancer, THC and all the less regular events too.

I can vouch for his ‘crowd-uplifting’ abilities too, as every time I play Alanamra he’s up the front, doing his thing – I made sure to thank him after my first set, he made all the difference. The second clip [below] is a kind of fusion of Melbourne Shuffle and the typical raver step that you find at most events here – smooth stuff.

I’m late posting this one up, but the new NRGetic Romancer flyer has been completed by Captain Multi-talented himself, Android Lime. As for me, work is kicking back in again now and I’m having trouble getting together the tunes I was hoping to play – there’s still time though. I’ve stumbled on some pretty nice combinations to throw in at certain spots, and it’s going to be a bit darker this time, all being well.