The last couple of choices have just been submitted, and so it’s now time to share the Japanese scene’s favourite tracks of the past year. As with the 2015 edition I’ve added links to as many of the tracks as possible, hopefully helping those who want to hunt down the unfamilar choices.
In an effort to keep mine unbiased I’ve ruled out any tracks that appeared on In Praise of Shadows. Although that made things tricky (had the compilation appeared on a different label all of my choices would very likely have come from there) it was good fun to dig through the rest of the year’s releases. The three I’ve gone for are still excellent tracks of course, and would have been challenging for a place in the list either way.
As always, I hope you enjoy the look back – with such a strong year of releases it’d be great to see some Horser choices in the comments, too.
GULD (NRGetic Romancer)
Hyphen (SOLIDBOX RECORDS)
- Substanced – Afterlife Penance (Transcend & Cyrax remix) [FINRG]
- Transcend & Cyrax – Unleashed (Substanced remix)
- Grimsoul – Badass Geeks (Lost Faith & Spectrum remix) [ReBuild Music]
Alabaster (M&C Recordings)
- Synthwulf – Not Your Angel (Synthwulf bootleg) [Justice Hardcore]
- Alchemiist – Triple X Rated [FINRG]
- Morita Yuuhei – The Ghost [TYFTH]
Morita Yuuhei (Illegal Wave Records)
- Nomic – Caldera [TYFTH]
- Substanced – Rise From The Darkness [FINRG]
- Kokomochi feat. Setsunann – AWAKE (Hyphen remix)
Kokomochi (FutureProof Sounds)
- Substanced – Rise From The Darkness (Original mix) [FINRG]
- Alabaster – Galaxy [TYFTH]
- Hyphen – Hell & Heaven [FutureProof Sounds]
Raqhow (CODEX, Freeform Bros)
- Morita Yuuhei – Now or Never
- Kokomochi – Iron Sky [FutureProof Sounds]
- Kevin Energy & Cube::Hard – Voice of Carme (Transcend remix)
NONAKA+CHIN (SPREEMO, Freeform Bros)
- Alias A.K.A. – Techn8 (Qygen Remix) [ALIAS A.K.A.]
- Nomic – Shattered [ReBuild Music]
- Substanced – Into the Light (Original mix) [FINRG]
ASAHI (CODEX)
- Freakangel – Not A Love Song (STUDIO-X Hard Dance Remix) [Alfa Matrix]
- KSHMR & Marnik – Bazaar [Spinnin’ Records]
- Don Diablo & Khrebto – Got The Love [Spinnin’ Records]
PlasmaDancer (TYFTH, FINRG, CODEX, NRGetic Romancer)
1. Einhander – Storm Coming
2. Alabaster – Galaxy
3. GULD – Perkele!
Not a difficult choice for me, but I may have to try again using your rules! (Brionac would have probably taken the top spot had it not made such an impact in 2011 and every year since.)
This is a super difficult list to do this year and keeping it to 3 is impossible…there’s 6 or 7 just from IPOS that are fairly difficult to choose between alone
1. Nomic – Falling Star III
2. Alabaster – Galaxy
3. Kokomochi feat. 薛南 – AWAKE (Hyphen Remix)
Special mention of
DJ Sammy – Heaven 170Boot (KorsK )
S.Percentage – Genesis Field
OutPhase – quaser(OV-105,Endeavour Mix)
daph + polysha – Psychic Formers
Morita Yuuhei – The Ghost
Marusha – Deep (Pain on Creation Remix)
1. Hyphen – Chemical Infusion
2. Alek Szahala – Enuma Elish
3. Alabaster – Galaxy
1. GULD – Perkele!
2. Einhander – Storm Coming
3. Alek Szahala – Enuma Elish
I’m super late to this, but here is my list:
1. Nomic – Shattered [Rebuild Music]
2. Alabaster – Galaxy [TYFTH]
3. Einhander – Storm Coming [TYFTH]
Honorable mentions:
Substanced – Artificial Reality [Stamina]
Marusha – Deep (Pain on Creation remix)
Nomic – Falling Star part 3
… and the rest of the TYFTH CD. 🙂