So, Arkitech’s jaunt around Tokyo with the Full Circle crew is not very far away after all. First up is the ‘Daytime Edition’ of X-Treme Hard, this time at Shibuya’s AMATERAXI on the 2nd March, where Arkitech will be playing back-to-back with DJ Yousuke. Now that does sound pretty appealing – I might have moved away from Happy Hardcore/the merrier side of things these days, but Yousuke’s sets are quite possibly the best that you’ll find anywhere, and his effort at Run-Run vs 4Real was about the most original HappyCore/other stuff set I’ve heard for a long time.
The 8th March sees Arkitech make another appearance in Shibuya, this time at the Hardcore Baby’s Revenge Release Party (at Club Kinoto). No other news on who else will be turning up for this one yet, but after the epic wait for this release it’s probably safe to expect a decent line-up.
Incidentally, the next Hell’s Gate event is almost here – once again held in the middle of the week, somewhat bizarrely, on the 13th of this month. I won’t be able to make this, which is a real shame – I can say with some authority that Zio will be playing some cracking tunes, a lot of them unreleased. Anyone who happens to be in the AMATERAXI vicinity would be advised to wander along, for sure.
FINRG’s new compilation CD, Hakkapeliitta, arrived a short while ago after an epic wait – which is quite understandable, as it is the label’s first CD release. All in all, it’s pretty impressive, and in general the tracks are excellent choices. Rx’s Code of Silence, Alek Szahala’s Maruuk and Iron Squid and Proteus and Carbon Based’s Heavy Fusion are all well known, but still classic tunes. The stand out for me though has to be Re-form’s Silver Cube, an absolutely storming tune that either hasn’t been released before, or has simply passed me by completely until now. My previous favourite Re-form tracks (Cobra and Sunstroke) are both great, and wear their ‘Made By Re-form’ mark very conspicuously, but on listening I sometimes wish for a few more of the filtering tricks etc that other artists have been making use of for many a year. Silver Cube definitely delivers, sawtoothing away through the early sections until a classic Re-form melody kicks in after a couple of minutes. I’m not sure when the track was originally produced, but it bodes very well for the duo’s comeback this year.
Happy New Year indeed! I’ll start off this year’s posts with a nicely out-of-date note re. X-Treme Hard’s end of year party on the 21st of last month. Although I’m not the biggest fan of Gabber/Speedcore, it was a very good evening – even if the Full Circle Collective played for a slightly less than gargantuan 15 minutes (understandably, given the number of DJs playing). The couple of tunes that they had time to play were excellent, including DJ Yousuke on guitar (and vocals!), and a typical combination of Hardcore/Drum & Bass.