In case you’re not convinced yet by all the recent THC happenings, here’s a must-see preview/summary video of the event. It runs through all the major DJs, and has some great footage in particular of Lunch, Kanon and Betwixt & Between (minus his mask, as this isn’t NRGetic Romancer). Great decor at this event too, it must be said.
There seem to be a lot of THC events lately, and here’s another – once again at Studio Cube, the lineup’s looking very tasty. No Betwixt & Between, but DJs of the calibre of Lunch, Kanon, Technetium, Stanfield and others means that this is one not to be missed. There’ll also be a free mix CD for anyone turning up, so that seals it for me, I think.
Lunch (TOKYO HARDCORE CONSTRUCTION/S.H.C.)
NDE (NIGHTMARELAND)
DJ Stanfield (IROCEP)
Kanon (A.I.N.)
狗神 (NIGHTMARELAND)
DJ WILD PARTY (赤線企画)
DJ Technetium vs. MC Tyrant (Cis-Trance)
LALA (LoveScreamTerror/SUPER GABBERS)
Yusuke & Gokuraku (adrenalin)
Here’s the first of what I hope’ll be many Italian-related posts – the upcoming Massive event on the 17th of this month. DJ BRK (the man responsible for bringing Guld to Italy next month) will be playing alongside Plus DJ, Child of Sorrows and AKT, and as you can see from the back of the flyer, pretty much every hard dance genre is covered. You might also notice that Thank You For The Horse is listed among the event’s supporters (as well as Hell’s Gate and NRGetic Romancer) – it’s a real honour, and hopefully this will be the start of a link between events here and in Italy.
[above] Here’s the banner image from the Massive flyer – awesome, no? You might have guessed that I wasn’t the one who came up with this, so a million thanks are owed to Nightforce this time, instead.
[above] While this is the new Hell’s Gate logo, courtesy of Pecori. The flyer for next month is under construction at the moment, so there might be a few changes for that version.
Recently Proteus’ Bassoradio programme held a special Hybridize showcase, and you can catch a really nice selection of the new sublabel’s releases, including Nomic’s absolutely beautiful Extinguish as the opening tune. The interview with DJ Swoosh and Epyx & Cyrez is probably very interesting too, but I haven’t a clue what they’re talking about. It’s in Finnish, you see. Anyway, highly recommended, and you can download it here.
It’s taken a long while to get going, but Guld’s NRGetic Romancer Records has finally got some releases on Trackitdown. There are a few older releases, such as Nightmare Freak and the original/remix of Nish’s Heartbreaker, but also some long-awaited newies – Guld and Betwixt & Between’s Hatral, and the Guld remix of Proteus’ I See The Things That You Don’t See. Jupiter probably won’t be seeing a release though, as that’s already been signed up to the Quake Trance label. Still, it’s not every day that NRG releases see the light of day in Japan, so this is a very Good Thing indeed.
While there’s not too much going on, let’s have a listen to another classic from back in the day. I might have given up on The Prodigy ever since they released Firestarter, but that doesn’t change the fact that they were one of the most influential sounds of early 90s electronica. One Love isn’t my favourite Prodigy tune, but that break at 1.15 used to give me the same feeling I get now from the ‘grinding sawtooth + kick’ in modern FINRG/JNRG. I remember wishing that it would go on for a good couple of minutes….And what about that drumbeat, eh? They knew what they were doing back then, no doubt…
Hello, I’ve been a bit lazy for the past week – but thankfully not too much seems to have happened in the freeform world, so I’m safe.
Anyway, I managed to get to the Enough/Hell’s event last night, and it was good fun. Shinjuku M’s is located smack in the middle of Tokyo’s biggest red-light/gay district, and not somewhere I frequent too often. Cue me getting lost among the dodgy side streets, and no doubt looking like someone in search of just the right kind of host/hostess bar while I gazed at all the signs.
Tokyo Hardcore Construction is almost happening as we speak – I can’t make it this time, but my girlfriend is probably going. Anyway, for folk like me who can’t get to the event, we can create the same atmosphere in our own homes (minus huge speakers and a crew of cybergoths) with a huge crop of gabber/NRG/all sorts of other stuff mixes over at the THC archive. I must admit that I haven’t had time to listen to all the sets yet, but for freeform fans the standout will surely be Betwixt & Between’s hard NRG mix, the tracklist of which is as follows:
- Nomic – Make Me Real
- Alek Szahala – Superstition
- Marco V – Godd (Tyranoid/Strongstream extended remix)
- Eclipse – Stairway to Brooklyn
- Distressed Frequencies – Victimized
- Alek Szahala – Anmitzcuacua
- Alek Szahala – Firecloud
Pretty tasty, no? It gives a really good idea of Betwixt’s NRG/freeform influences, and is very nicely put together – dark and extremely hard, with an interesting choice of Stairway to Brooklyn in the middle there.
I also have to recommend the mixes by Lunch (quite possibly the finest gabber DJ in Tokyo) and Kanon, also a master of ‘real’ dark gabber (rather than the demented anime-style efforts of Sharpnel et al).
Now these are brilliant, I reckon. As well as being something of an expert event flyer/logo/everything else designer and a quality gabber DJ, Pecori (aka Stanfield) has come up with some brilliant looking glowstick holders. As you can see, they attach to raver pants (do they call them raver trousers in English?), and you can slide your Lumicas in there for safe keeping between flailing sessions. It’s classic Japanese raver scene – eye-watering cuteness combined with cyber rave style, and I was pretty tempted even though I’ve no idea what to do with a pair of glowsticks.
Sadly this was a short term project over a couple of days, but Pecori was also throwing in a pair of custom glowsticks in the colour of your choice for any purchasers. I’ll make sure to post up anything else he creates, but you would probably be have to be in Tokyo (worst case scenario Japan) to get your hands on the gear.
About time I posted up another Top Ten, I think – there have been too many good tunes lately not to.
- Epyx & Cyrez vs Fea – Untitled (Cyrez Hell’s Gate edit)
- Substanced & Grimsoul – Harder Than U Think
- Carbon Based & DJ Rx – Titor’s Quantum Theory
- Nomic – Extinguish
- Nightforce – Raindrops
- Proteus, Ephexis, Ting – Angel of Hell
- Sam One vs Substanced – Misery
- Epyx & Cyrez – Polyhedra 08
- Betwixt & Between – The Moon From Below
- DJ Rx – Code of Silence (Epyx & Cyrez remix)