Time for a real blast from the past via a post on Guld’s new blog – this is a rare and very old tune called Madarosis (not Macarosis as the video title has it). Very dark and nasty, Guld came up with a few tunes in this style before the original Hannya was released. This reminds me that I’ve got a couple of them on CD somewhere…that might be enough of an excuse to play a ‘retro’ set on ustream soon..
Over to Sweden for this new video from Heathen, giving us a crash course in what to expect from his sets. It looks like this one ran all the way from hardstyle up to hard NRG, with some great selection – NRG fans should be sure to listen out at the end of the clip for Hesotarou Tankobu into All of Us.
Betwixt & Between – Hesotaro Proteus Remix – Preview by Proteus Official
Proteus is really on top form these days, and still manages to do more than anyone to support what goes on here in Japan. Here’s another example, a fantastic remix of Betwixt & Between’s Hesotarou Tankobu – atmospherics over heavy drums and filters are now a Proteus trademark, but it’s from the breakdown on that this one gets into its stride. Very different feel to the classic original, but I like this a lot.
No news yet on NRGetic Romancer, but we’ve got another tasty event coming up before the end of the year. I’m guessing that this versus affair between THC and the brilliantly-named Rainbow Devil will be on two floors of Cube, as the list of DJs seems to go on forever.
>T.H.C.Crew
Lunch (T.H.C./Rejection Records)
Redd (D.I.E.)
LALA (LoveScreamTerror)
Caress128 (HARDCORE NITRO)
TAK666 (Cradle to Grave)
A10 Divece (T.H.C.)
DJ enshu (HARDCORE NITRO/KGB)
DJ Myosuke (Solidbox Records)
>Rainbow Devil Crew
Kanon (Party Pill)
Betwixt & Between (NRGetic Romancer)
KA-NA (HELLS GATE/JP)
ac-key (Lunatic Sabbath)
TETRA.
MAH (FREE☆MIND)
MyoU (HARDCORE NITRO)
mattu123 (B.D.G.)
DJ yawarakabeef (Premium dining)
Seems like way too long since I heard an Rx set, but here’s a nice video from his early 2010 gig in Poland. Look at the lighting in that place…!
I managed to get down to Shinjuku at the very last minute for this one, and it was worth it just to see suge playing for the first time. His set was supposed to be a Live PA, but he was mixing from one CDJ to the other too – only using his own tracks though, from what I could tell. There were a fair few from the Chimera album, but I don’t recognise the tune in the video above. As usual, my camera doesn’t do it justice, but that build-up really sounded amazing.
The rest of the event was pretty hit and miss, with some very weird timetabling, and for once I left early. The Hardcore Regiment set (featuring Azsa, Kanon and Betwixt & Between) turned out to be 40 minutes or so of quality hardcore/gabber anthems – I was hoping for some TOTAL DISCOMMUNICATION tracks mixed in with some THC classics, but Betwixt was on MC duty (!) this time, leaving Kanon and Azsa to play the tunes.
After Matt England’s Freeform Sound comes another blog to support the scene, this time from Guld himself. The idea behind this one seems to be to make people in Japan a bit more aware of what’s going on in the NRG world, but I bet there’ll be plenty of interesting stuff up there for hard NRG/freeform fans, wherever they may be. The blog will be in Japanese, but for those who can manage (or can use a translator), make sure to check it out here.
After all the excitement of last week things have quietened down again here, but there’ll be a couple of ‘feature’ posts coming up before too long (I hope), plus some news from Nitro X.
The darker/deeper side of the scene might be suffering a bit this year, but full credit to the artists who are still pushing the sound; there have been some amazing tracks in the last couple of months. The combination of All of Us and Aurora is a perfect example of where I think freeform should be going – dark and nasty one moment, beautiful and melancholy the next. High fives all round to Epyx & Cyrez, Heathen and Aryx.
That actually links in nicely with this month’s random video, as the other day I finished playing through LIMBO (an Xbox Live-only game), and it absolutely blew me away. This trailer hardly does it justice – if you haven’t come across it before, it’s an incredibly beautiful/disturbing/emotional experience, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. High fives for Playdead studios too, then.
- Epyx & Cyrez meets Heathen – All of Us
- Aryx – Aurora
- Betwixt & Between – Point Of No Return
- Dye In Sound – The Storyteller
- Alabaster – lolite
- Betwixt & Between – Inexistenz
- Proteus – Fist of the North Star
- Alabaster -Hellion
- Nomic – Walking In The Air (live edit)
- Aquanox – Killer Loop
Level 13 – Is That All by Level13
Level 13 is back again with a stormer of a track – only a preview up for the time being, but there could be some release information coming very soon. Is That All mixes trance and NRG, with plenty of vocals and some fantastic melodies being messed around with by those trademark filters. I was really impressed with this one, it’s definitely a tune to keep a look out for.
It’s a while since we’ve had a Decion set on TYFTH, but Turbulence is right up there with his best. As seems to be the case with a lot of them, I’m keener on the tracks at the beginning of the set than the end, but that could just be unfamiliarity with the tunes coming through. The mixing is absolutely top quality, and the only disappointment is the lack of Alchemiist tracks this time – they always seem to give the mixes just that little bit of variety. Putting that to one side, this is another must-listen set for NRG fans, and easily saw me through a whole day of train journeys today.
- Project Mayhem vs Justin Bourne – Dance Flaw (Justin Bourne & Dynamic Intervention remix)
- Firefox – Synesthesia
- Random But Raw – Muck Spreading
- Aftermath – Underworld (Justin Bourne & Dynamic Intervention remix)
- Phatt Beats & Sonny Summers – Wu Tang
- Matt R – Super Cops
- Daley – Caveman (Chris F remix)
- Chris F – No Respect
- NooNoo – Razored Flesh
- NARC – Haters
- Random But Raw – Brutal World
- Twisted Psycho – Come Alive