Slightly belated thanks here to everyone who listened to last weekend’s stream. As I mentioned on Mastodon, it was a nice feeling (and quite an achievement by recent standards) to announce and then plan a set at fairly short notice. More gratifying, though, was seeing some TYFTH regulars in the chatroom, ready and waiting even before the set started. It made my evening, and even if the streams don’t pick up a larger audience I would be more than happy to play for our little group as often as I can manage.
This time it was Alek-only, and to up the challenge (and interest) there were some relatively underplayed tracks in the list. Overall I was very happy with how it went, especially as a few sequences turned out well enough that they’ll probably find their way into the eventual Alek tribute mix. I’m thinking especially of that Ziggurat – Fuji – The Hater section, which feels like a pretty effective way to switch things up from melodic to aggressive. The overall progression was also good, and it bodes well for the ‘real’ set (whenever that’ll be) that I ended up cutting a few other new transitions to keep things as close to an hour as possible.
Tracklist
01. Alek Szahala – Balag Lamara
02. Alek Szahala – Maruuk
03. Alek Szahala – Voices of Babylon
04. Alek Szahala – Unholy Word
05. Alek Szahala – Tlaloc
06. Alek Szahala – Mageslayer
07. Alek Szahala – Dryad Machine
08. Alek Szahala – Ziggurat
09. Alek Szahala – Fuji
10. Alek Szahala – The Hater
11. Alek Szahala – Ngarnuuk
12. Alek Szahala – Vengeance
13. Alek Szahala – Icy Clouds
14. Aszagarnak – Shinnae
Yep, that version of Unholy Word is definitely not the one I have. Now I wonder how many different edits are out there.
I still have mixed feelings on Fuji after all the chromaticism in Ziggurat, but seeing as he himself first played it after Enuma Elish I might be the only one. More thoughts here or elsewhere soon, probably!
The vinyl version and the digital version are actually slightly different in the break. This is the digital version. The vinyl one doesn’t have the pause with the vocal sample and instead has a bitcrushed segment.
I just realized this myself as I checked them aha also the outro is completely different between the two.
I just like the crazy filtered part in the stream version so much more. If I somehow ended up with the non-digital version then it seems like an easy fix, so thanks!
This has always confused me as I’ve got two files here, one labelled FINRG HARD004 which I assumed was the vinyl version, but they’re both the same. Good to know Shimo, thanks!
And belated thanks for the fine feedback, Sherkel! Full disclosure: as a standalone track I’m not that keen on Fuji, but I enjoyed both of those transitions so much they might be blinding me to how well it actually fits in. Fuji into Hater is definitely worth keeping, but I’ll sit on the Ziggurat transition for a while and see what I think, as and when.
Thanks for the upload. Sunday i missed it 🙁
No worries, barring disaster they’ll always be recorded from now on 🙂
Loved the set. Also missed it on Sunday, so thanks for the recording.
I thought the first 15 mins where terrific. Balag > Maruuk > Voices of Babylon was an awesome combination. I thought Ziggurat’s BPM was slightly too high for my taste. Does somewhat reducing a set’s BPM really affect it that negatively? An extreme example of trying to match every track’s BPM would be that 3-hour Száhala tribute mix on youtube, in which Nabassu’s BPM was altered to comical levels and thus ruined. There’s definitely a sweet spot beyond which messing with the BPM ought to be avoided.
Loved listening to the Hater, Vengeance, and Icy Clouds. These are tracks I rarely listen to.
As for Unholy Word… there’s a pretty cool live edit of it with Noitavasara’s melody. It’s on Száhala’s Mayhem 2005 mix. Perhaps you guys could ask Száhala for it? In my fangirl years I asked for Supriya’s live edit and he uploaded it, so he might have those edits available in mixable form for any DJ willing to play them. And now that we’re talking about live edits, there’s the pretty cool Mayhem 2006 Live edit of Unicorn Grove, too, with those weird timbres that resemble a spring-like mechanism.
Thanks kindly, bern, I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Balag – Maruuk – VoB is an old favourite of mine, as they’re all in the same key at the same bpm. Alek’s used the latter two a lot together too, of course, but I like blending them together to keep things a bit more interesting.
Interesting point re. Ziggurat – it was 172 bpm this time, which is definitely the highest I’d be happy playing it. It was really for the benefit of Fuji that I was playing it quickly, as Fuji’s main melody is relatively plodding at the original 160 and I wanted to speed things up. The other factor was that Fuji and The Hater miraculously matched up at 172, forcing my hand and meaning that the bpm had to be higher by then. Point taken though, and I generally agree with you! It’s the reason I don’t like playing tracks like Alanamra and Mermaid beyond the high 160s.
Is the 2005 Mayhem set online anywhere? If I ever had the file it seems to have disappeared…
There’s also that amazing edit of Dryad Machine with the Sunray melody, but I don’t think that even made it into a fully recorded set. Who knows what he might still have lying around!
Here’s the set: https://soundcloud.com/finrg-recordings/alek-szahala-live-at-mayhem
And its tracklist:
1. Alek Száhala – Supriya (live edit)
2. Alek Száhala – Dryad Machine
3. Alek Száhala – Chimaera
4. Alek Száhala – The Rebirth of Maruuk
5. Alek Száhala – Tlaloc
6. Alek Száhala – Unholy Word (with melody form Noitavasara)
7. Alek Száhala – Invitation
8. Alek Száhala – Ngarnuuk
9. Alek Száhala – Man Eaten
Also, I went ahead I uploaded two Száhala sketches I had on my hard-drive that were not mentioned in his old comprehensive tracklist webpage. Found them on some sharing website like 4shared or something, many years ago.
Weird dreams: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1cQVRtvjEH0vyudqTLuvAnHQ-uCZCtq3M
Featuring some cool száhalian (eheh) twisted timbres and what appears to be an alien cyborg cat meowing.
Unnamed sketch: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hn6TSDk6CWbu4WcGp4BRn4sxl36IkFua
The file is misnamed as Sunray. But whatever. It’s clearly from Száhala.
Don’t think he’ll mind me uploading these two old sketches of his… it’s not like there’s way worse and less polished work from him available online anyway! But in case he does mind, I’ll promptly delete the links.
And no problem, btw, the pleasure of listening your set was all mine. It kicked ass. 😀
Ngarnuuk’s missing on the tracklist btw!
Good spot, thanks! Updated the tracklist 🙂