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.

First up as always were gokuraku and Yuusuke, playing for 70 minutes this time. Again playing the tracks that usually get a decent response, the place had warmed up nicely by the time of my set. The trouble was, I had some tech problems during the soundcheck and they struck again just before I was going to start – in the above video you might be able to spot me and Betwixt trying to sort things out while Yuusuke played one more track (Schranz Slippy) to cover us. Thanks a million to him and gokuraku, and to Betwixt for giving me a hand…the silver lining was that Schranz Slippy probably got the best reaction from the crowd of their whole set, meaning they were in a good mood for the start of mine.

So then, after all the cold-sweat moments of my gear giving me problems, the set actually went really well, and I was very happy with it. This time I’d decided beforehand to play a bit darker, and was hoping to get back to the kind of style of Yamanote no Oto and NRG Monogatari. The last set went well, but there were maybe too many melodies and not enough of the hard stuff….after my set on Saturday somebody said that it was a kind of nice, melancholy/emotional style (a bit untranslateable, but aishuu/哀愁 in Japanese). That ‘aishuu’ feeling was exactly what I was aiming for, and I reckon it’s what sets Finnish/Japanese tunes apart from other hardcore…I’d gone a bit far away from that with the set in February, so it was great to hear that someone else recognised what I was trying to do for this one.

Anyway, the tracklist looked quite different this time as I tried to freshen things up a bit and get back to the style I had in mind. I’m definitely not complaining, but towards the end of last week I received a bucketload of promos, many of which were in the ‘must-play’ category – for the last week or so I’d been messing around with a 3 or 4 track intro sequence (lots of guitars, that kind of thing), but changed my mind completely while practicing on Friday. I ended up having about 20 tunes that I wanted to play (especially second half of the set), but by some miracle I seemed to pick the right ones on the night. Big apologies to the artists whose tracks I couldn’t get in this time, but massive thanks for the set to Nomic, Substanced, IAF, Nightforce and Laz/Re-form.

1. Nomic – Steradian
2. Nomic – There is No Escape
3. IAF – Kinky
4. Re-form – Cobra
5. Kevin Energy vs Proteus – London Helsinki Underground (K Complex remix)
6. Albinoni – Adagio in G minor (Nomic remix)
7. EFM-7 – Dream Machine
8. Nightforce – The Second Redemption 09
9. Alek Szahala – Voices of Babylon
10. Sonic – Inside the Ride
11. Substanced – Freeform Mercury
12. Alek Szahala – Supriya
13. Anomic – This Moment
14. Nomic – Outro

As you can see, there were plenty of older tunes, and Inside the Ride, Supriya and Re-form especially were really popular, as were all of Nomic’s tunes. Substanced’s Freeform Mercury is an absolutely awesome tune – the breakdown is 100% NRGetic Romancer style, even sounding like a cross between Guld, Alek Szahala and Betwixt at some points.

Finally, it’s looking doubtful that the set was recorded, but here are three videos taken by Soham during the set…

The first is Detch and Miran glowstick/stringing while IAF’s Kinky plays in the background.

Next is me going from Re-form’s Cobra into the London Helsinki Underground remix, both big tunes here, luckily.

Last one has been seen before, but let’s put it up here too – Miran dancing with a double mask face with Voices of Babylon in the background.

Next up was Cogi, and he played a fantastic set of older Psytrance and Hard NRG. It was such a great atmosphere, really hard/twisting, and definitely felt like something you can only hear at NRGetic Romancer. I’m slowly recognising the names of some of the artists, but there were many many new tunes for me here. Take a look at the tracklist – you know something special selection-wise is going on when Torog and Kevin Energy are in the same set.

1. Midimiliz – Cream
2. Airi – Lybrarian
3. Injector – Funky Control 2000 (DJ Mishka Mix)
4. Post Traumatic – Telecom Project
5. Kernel Panic – New Age Concepts
6. Magma Ohm – Umbrela Achive
7. DJ Mishka – Going Back In Time (Mad Gay Mafia Mix)
8. Torog – Shadow Of Everything
9. DJ Mishka – The Time Bomb (Mad Gay Mafia Mix)
10. Flymo – Oktober
11. Choci – Mitsubishi Landings (Destination Venus Mix)
12. Kevin Energy – Roll With This (Hard as Fuck mix)

It was great to have Cogi back on the lineup – NRGetic Romancer needs him to be playing every event, without a doubt. Here’s a video taken during his set, Detch and Deb-4 are in action this time:

Full Circle DJs played another 30minute set, this time going in a yet another different direction, with a more acid-style. The bpm was relatively low again, but with some really nice tunes and the crowd definitely enjoyed it. You can hear Baobab in the clip below, one of my favourites. Do You Remember and SEVEN are also great tunes, and it’ll be interesting to see how this style progresses.

Next up was Betwixt & Between, and he also played a retro-styled set – it was a real surprise to hear tunes like 4321 next to Dust to Dust etc, but it made a nice change and the crowd loved it. I’m a massive fan of lots of those older tunes, and they definitely still do the business through a big system. He even finished off the set with some classic trancecore from other artists, including a very old track from Kevin Energy which I can’t for the life of me remember the title…

Incidentally, Betwixt was playing via laptop for the first time ever at this event, and used it mostly for adding extra effects over the top of the Live PA. It sounded really good, and you can get a taste of it in the clip below, as Zusammengehorigkeit comes in near the end. The tune playing in this clip is called From the Abyss, another brilliant ‘aishuu’ style tune – it’s available on the RED ALiCE compilation Chaos Flare (which I only found out about a few days ago, sorry about that).

Last up as always was Guld, playing a nice selection of his current promos. As well as the DJ X Lab 4 remix of Requiem and new tracks from ConfigSys Project, he played Android Lime’s remix of Hell Night, which really went down well. Guld pitched it up a bit, and it fitted into the set perfectly. This was the first for Guld to play his new version of Nightmare Freak, and everyone loved the insane synths and huge kick. It was great seeing the reaction of people who hadn’t heard it before – they didn’t know what it was as the first synths started, but then the ‘dah-dah-dah-dah’/’Welcome to my Nightmare’ break came in and everyone went crazy… Other tunes included Solid State Scouter, Hatral and the ever-incredible Last of the Mohicans remix, which has to be the perfect ‘near the end of a set’ tune.

And so another NRGetic Romancer was over. There were words at the end about the low attendance, but hopefully it’s a one off, and it’s fair to say the next one will be a lot busier – looking at the quality of DJs on show each time, and how amazing the crowd are, I couldn’t really wish to play at a better event. Thanks again to all the other DJs and Cube staff this time, and I’ll be looking forward to the next one on the 18th July (no event in June this year, but a July-August double header instead).