Next week sees the first of this year’s Hell’s Gate vs Trance Enough events, which I was talking about with Zio at the end of last year. Turns out that neither of us are on the lineup this time, but it’s looking like a good one, with KA-NA, Minagi and AEMI all playing.

Just a quick shout for this event too – yesterday’s Eclipse was in very-far-from-clubland Asakusa, and featured AEMI again. The styles weren’t too hard for this one, but the interesting thing was that all four headlining DJs were girls. Sexism is an ever-present over here, so it’s definitely nice to see the underground scene doing things differently.

Almost time for the next ever free, again at Shibuya’s Chelsea Hotel. From what I hear, the last one was a very nice event, and a lot of the Romancer crew went along. This time the lineup is looking great, with Kanon, Lunch, Wild Party, Sisen, Tetra and more. See how many you can name in the photo sequence up the top there.

First of all, sorry for the slow updates this week – I’m a bit overwhelmed by real life at the moment, so I’ve had to pause most of the music stuff I’ve been working on. If I’ve missed anything recently, feel free to let me know via email/messenger/whatever, and I’ll get things back up to speed ASAP. Also, I’m probably not allowed to say too much, but keep an eye on FINRG for the next few days, a really nice (but slower) track is now locked and loaded…

Anyway, the topic of this post – X-TREME Hard, the label/event behind the annual ‘Day of Hardcore’ has just freshened up the site, and is definitely worth a browse. One of the main reasons would be for the ‘Party Photos’, but I’ve been having trouble opening the pages (otherwise there would be one at the top of this post).

A bit quiet this week, so here’s some info on an unusual event that I’ll be going to if I can find the time from somewhere. 合奏みだれ天国 roughly translates as ‘Disordered concert heaven’, and so as you might guess it’s a pretty eclectic lineup. Aural Vampire are one of the bands, but the main reason I’ll be trying to make it is to catch the guest Live PA from Swedish chip musician Covox. If you haven’t heard his stuff before, it ranges from very danceable tunes to melancholy ballad-style affairs – all with glorious Game Boy chip sounds. Below are a couple of examples – first his relentlessly happy Summer Fruit Dance Party, followed by his remix of Japanese artist Blasterhead’s classic Killbots.