Not much more to add to the title at this stage, but yesterday Betwixt & Between received two new tunes from Hase himself, and seems they were created very recently. It was a couple of months back when we heard that Hase might be making tracks again, and so this is great news. Let’s hope that RaverRose might start up again sometime, too..
As far as I know this set wasn’t recorded, but I thought it might be worth posting up Alabaster’s tracklist from Touhou Carnival a week ago. As you can see, it’s not only NRGetic Romancer and Hell’s Gate which are pushing the Finnish sound – this set looks fantastic, and I really hope that I can make it to the next event (as Betwixt also plays there, too). Playing V8 as the second track is about as hardcore as it gets, and Hellfire followed by Zable Fahr sounds like a really interesting mix.
- Alabaster – Reality Haze
- Pain on Creation – V8
- Alabaster – Machine Messiah
- DJ Rx – Hellfire
- Alabaster – Zable Fahr
- Alabaster – Forgotten Ancient
- Alabaster – The Barrel Maze
- Pain on Creation – Mortality
- Alabaster – Void
（日本語が読める方いたら私のミクシイページを見てみてください！）
Right, time to sum up what happened last weekend, then. Apologies if this goes on for too long, but if I can’t ramble about my own event on my own blog, where can I, eh? The above photo was taken during my set (so I’m the little red blob up in the DJ booth), and while a bit blurry, it gives a good idea of the attendance for this event. Zio mentioned that there were around 70 people, which is pretty respectable for an event of this kind with no special guests. We’re expecting much much more for November’s event, when Hellraiser will be headlining, of course. Incidentally, there should be some very nice photos from this event coming soon, for reasons which maybe I can’t explain just yet. I’ll post them up as soon as they make an appearance, though.
Anyway, things got off to a slightly chaotic start pre-event when it turned out that our ‘meet at 9pm for sound checks/putting up the decor’ plan was ruined by the previous party overrunning in spectacular style. In the end, Stanfield, Minagi take-de-x and myself were kicking our heels outside Studio Cube until 10.30, which for an event starting at 11pm, is cutting it pretty fine. Cue an insane 25mins or so of putting up posters/flyers etc, while simultaneously trying to sound check all our gear. As Stanfield and I had laptops to sort out, this took longer than you might expect. In the middle of all this, poor Minagi was trying to prepare for his opening set – he did a great job of setting up in super-quick time without panicking, considering this was only his second event.
This is starting to turn into the Hell’s Gate blog, but another Hell’s-related event has recently been announced. Psychadelic Enough vs Hell’s will see both collectives play more of a euphoric/psychadelic style, along with hard house and I’m guessing some hard style from Zio.
Obviously it might not be the time or place to be crashing in with 175bpm freeform, so I’m not playing at this one. KA>NA is, but not the dark Hard NRG that she’s famous for – something more along the psych lines this time, I hear. take-de-x is also playing at the event (it seems tailor made for him), but he’s involved in some group-swapping hijinks, and so he’ll be part of the Enough crowd. I’ve never been to Shinjuku M’s, and so I might head along to support the others this time, especially as Zio has mentioned that he’ll playing harder tunes towards the end, too (in a similar style to Dance or Die vs Hell’s a month or so back).
The lineups:
ZIO (HELLS GATE/JP)
KA-NA (HELLS GATE/JP)
MKT (HELLS GATE/JP)
MINAGI aka Raythm (HELLS GATE/JP)
addict88(ENOUGH/JP)
壱 (STARCLASS/JP)
take-de-x (HELLS GATE/JP)
SHINME (ENOUGH/JP)
SOUTA (ENOUGH/JP)
KOUTA (ENOUGH/JP)
I haven’t even recovered from last Sunday yet, but huge news re. Hell’s Gate’s 1st Anniversary in November – Zio has managed to book a truly massive name…dark electronica legend Hellraiser. I haven’t heard him play before, and it should be quite an experience, but maybe even more exciting is the fact that I’m on the same bill! My set went down better than I could have hoped for at the last Hell’s, so I’ll once again be playing Japanese/Finnish freeform alongside DJ Minagi, KA>NA, take-de-x, Stanfield and Zio. More news as we get closer to the time, of course, and a report on the last event will be coming soon.
Nightforceというハードコア／フリーフォームアーティストは四つの新曲が完成しました。全部の曲のメロディーがすごく盛り上がってかっこいいと思います。特にRaindropsはちょっとAlek Szahalaっぽいですね！NightforceのMySpaceで聴けるRaindropsとDo You LoveはフィンランドのHybridizeというレーバルでリリース予定してます。おすすめですよ！
Nightforce has just announced four new tracks – his incredibly catchy Streets at Night remix, a remix of DJ Sash’s Simulate, Do You Love (alongside Substanced) and the fantastic Raindrops. All of the tunes are very melodic and distinctly ‘Nightforce style’, and can be heard on his MySpace page. The good news is that Raindrops and Do You Love are all set for release on Hybridize, so massive congrats are due. Apparently there are more tunes on the way before long – there’s no stopping this man!
I’m back from playing at Hell’s Gate, and I lived to tell the tale – but more on that soon. There’ll hopefully be some photos etc on the way, as well as a no-doubt overly long post describing exactly what went on.
This post is all about last month’s NRGetic Romancer, though – a little later than planned, but at least there are now some pictures to look at (there may be video coming later too, so stay tuned for that).
Of course this was a special event for a few reasons, first of all the occasion of NRGetic Romancer’s 4th anniversary, but also that DJ X Lab 4 was making his first solo appearance in Tokyo (not Japan though, as he’d played the day before in Osaka, if you remember).
Anyway, first up as always was Horny, or the new duo of gokuraku and Yuusuke. Playing energetic schranz, they did a fine job of warming up for the other DJs, even if the tunes seemed to slip from hard and fast into slightly cheesy a little too often for comfort. Still, their set offers something different from the rest of the night, which can only be a good thing. Cogi followed them, playing Psytrance and classic FINRG once more (as well as Halcyon, if I remember correctly). The pace really increased towards the end, and included Alek Szahala’s Invitation, a Cogi favourite but one I haven’t heard him play for quite some time. It would be great to see him let loose in the middle of the event, but the schedule seems pretty fixed for the time being – and he really knows how to build his set with the aim of preparing everyone for the following DJs (without stealing their tracks)…selfless stuff, and a lot harder than it looks, I bet.
An apology is due – I’ve only just noticed that the Japanese hard trance label Energetic Trance has been active on Trackitdown for most of this year! There have recently been another 6 additions, and some real blinders if you’re a hard trance head – including StripE’s Fighting for Freedom and Munetica and Buzzmasta’s Cross Water. Even more exciting for Hard NRG fans is that two of Hase’s best tunes can also be found here, the almost-hard-house M15 and Galatea, an anthem of epic proportions – even if it doesn’t quite match up to the incredible original/unreleased version, this is an absolute must-buy. Let’s hope that some more high quality releases will be on the way soon – I’ll be paying more attention to the Energetic Trance vinyl releases from now on, too.
The next NRGetic Romancer is just a month away, and Guld has just released the new flyer. Digging into my not-very-up-to-date anime knowledge, I’d say this one is…Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex?
Although there are no special guests this time, DJ X has come up with a mix that will be given out to everyone making it to the event – his set last month was fantastic, and so I wouldn’t complain if that’s the set included on the CD. Thinking about it, that reminds me that I haven’t managed to write up anything about the 4th Anniversary event yet. Bear with me, I’ll see if I can get hold of some more photos asap. Worth mentioning also that the artist previously known as ‘Horny’ has now become a duo, gokuraku & Yuusuke. Their last set in August was very good, so I’ll be looking forward to what they come up with this time.
Depending on where in the world you might be, it’s now a mere 5 days until Hell’s Gate – here’s another fantastic piece of work from Stanfield/Pecori, just reminding us of the fact.
Famous last words, but my set is all decided now, so all that’s left is to practice like a madman before Sunday.