Following Alek Szahala and Alchemiist’s tracks we have another reason to consider the UK-centric Freeform Family album with Aryx’s Port of Adia. Any release that includes new Aryx material deserves some support – we desperately need more tracks of this depth and quality.
Hardcore Summer Bash 2015 was a great event, but as so often happens when there’s a flood of good sets, some tend to get overlooked. Dyzphazia’s set has been on my radar for ages, and now I’ve finally checked it out it’s most definitely deserving of a mention here.
This is probably the first set for many months that has a tracklist that I’m 100% interested in – if you’re pining for the golden age of FINRG and the wonderful showcase sets we would regularly hear a few years ago, then delay no further and give this one a listen.
These tracks have been around for a long, long time (still sounding as glorious as ever, I’d add), and some rock-solid mixing shows how comfortable Dyzphazia is with a lot of these. There are some gentle shifts from one key to the next to keep the variety up, while hitting the sweet spot between the melancholy melodies and darker tracks.
The whole set is an excellent listen, but the selection of Savage Man coincides with what I think is the smoothest sequence of tunes – following it up with Tindaros and then Fisheye pretty much has it all. A nostalgic trip for most of us, and an excellent primer for anyone else who has joined the scene more recently, this one comes very highly recommended.
Megatherium is one of Alek Szhala’s newest tracks, appearing in a couple of recent podcasts and now set for release on Freeform Family, a 3 CD compilation from Stamina, ReBuild and A-Tech.
Early signs are that the other inclusions are (understandably) very UK-freeform-centric, but Megatherium does a fine job of striking a balance between dancefloor-friendly melodies and the psychedelic madness that Alek does best. A release to look out for, then, and in fact it can already be pre-ordered via the Stamina site.
Following on from the last post, here’s the tracklist for the upcoming Dark Dimension compilation. Turns out that Guld will be contributing two tracks, his new remix of Dryad Machine and what’s hopefully a remastered version of the Lamento della Sirena remix.
I’m also looking forward to Evil Fairy and Suke’s tracks, and it looks like there’ll be some interesting industrial tracks from Takuya Angel, Sisen and MonSiii.
Dark Dimension has been doing a superb job over the past few years of supporting Tokyo’s darker music scenes, with everything from industrial to NRG featured at one time or another. Next month’s event is a special one though, marking the release of the first Dark Dimension CD release.
The full tracklist is still unannounced, but some of the biggest names to appear at DD will be on there, including Sisen, Takuya Angel, Satoshi Honjou and (until now) non-producing DJs such as Akira and Ray Trak. Most interesting for the TYFTH crew will probably be Guld’s track, and I’ll be sure to post again once more tracklist info shows up.
I’ll be getting the CD on the day, but for those outside Japan there’ll be a chance to buy it too – that is if you happen to be in Germany (Essen, specifically) on the 17th-18th October. Takuya Angel will be playing at the Astan Asia Days event, and will have some CDs for sale there.
Should really have mentioned this by now, but if you missed Alek Szahala’s appearance on Detonation Hard Drive’s Summer Session then you’re in for another treat.
The tracklist is similar at first glance to Alek’s CODEX Live PA, but there are some surprises in the form of a beautiful intro leading into a very trance-styled first track, and the very, very welcome appearance of Ngarnuuk in the wonderful final third of the set.
Not much seems to have been going on this month, so let’s change that with a cluster of older, unreleased Epyx & Cyrez tunes. The standout for me is Typhoon – if I recall correctly the project files went AWOL at the time, so denying the scene a full-quality version of one of E&C’s finest ‘nasty melodic’ tracks. This is definitely better than nothing though, giving us a listen of the glorious (and now, tragically, slightly old school) filtering and that beautiful second breakdown – one of my very favourite Epyx & Cyrez moments.
The other two tracks here are fine examples of E&C’s brand of NRG, with Desolation really hitting its stride after the breakdown and the thumping Make Him Pay impressing with a hint of the original Risk Addiction.
Also worth mentioning that All of Us, Epyx & Cyrez’s excellent collab with Heathen, is now available again via Cyrez’s SoundCloud.
Watchtower Vo. 3 is finally emerging Rip Van Winkle-like from schedule stasis, with two CDs of high quality freeform and NRG. For TYFTH purposes the best news is the appearance of two brilliant Japanese tracks in Guld’s remix of Hatral and Le Dos-on’s Chemical Wash, but there’s also a very strong Finnish showing from Alek Szahala, Alchemiist, Grimsoul, Substanced, and Epyx & Cyrez / Tyranoid & Strongstream. Throw in some great tracks from Qygen and Aryx, and there’s a lot of material here for our side of the freeform spectrum, plus the expected new releases from Transcend, Lost Soul et al. A must buy, then, and preorders are already open on the Watchtower site, with the release a few days away.
How in the world I haven’t heard this before I’m not sure, but after Cyrez shared it earlier this week I thought it worth mentioning here too. A year old upload of a 2010 set, this is actually a fantastically nostalgic look back at the state of the scene, as well as a quality run-through of E&C’s influences.
The mixing throughout is excellent, and the first half especially has some glorious transitions between hard dance and NRG, before heading into the freeform. The freeform side also has its moments though, crowned by a glorious final connection between Harder Than U Think and Shine. It’s really interesting to listen to a 2010 set, the era when FINRG’s sound started to see far more influence from younger artists like Substanced, Nightforce and (on the darker side) Epyx & Cyrez and Heathen, while Nomic was gaining momentum once again.
We could definitely feel that shift in Tokyo too, and it was mirrored here as sets became more melodic and darker artists tried heading in different directions. It was still a brilliant time to be listening to/playing freeform though, and there was a distinctly bitter sweet feeling when checking this set out on a recent morning commute.
Brief respite here before I get back into more music-related busyness, and time for a belated look back at the last edition of CODEX. The biggest draw was the return of Alek Szahala after seven years away from Tokyo, but the whole event was a massive success, uniting the enthusiasm of the original CODEX crowd and the darker style of NRGetic Romancer’s ravers.