January/February Top Ten

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 27, 2009
Posted in: Top Tens. 2 comments

After two events in two months, it’s time for another Top Ten. As a sign of how much I’ve been locked away doing music stuff since the start of the year, I don’t have any photos to start the post off this time – maybe I’ll buy a new camera and start going for wanders around Tokyo or something. Fresh air is a good thing, or so I hear.

Quite a few ‘slower’ tunes in the list this time, for once!

  1. Alek Szahala – Voices of Babylon
  2. Cyrez – Private Demon
  3. Nomic – Awa
  4. ADAM Lab 4 – Psychopath (Proteus Hard Boiled remix)
  5. Hangover Academy vs Decion – Technological Terror
  6. Betwixt & Between – Tankobu Hesotarou no Hourou/The Wander of Hesotarou Tankobu
  7. IAF – Kinky
  8. Betwixt & Between – City of Solitude (Guld remix)
  9. Substanced vs Grimsoul – Signal Lost
  10. Epyx & Cyrez – Distant Illusions

New Hybridize releases

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 24, 2009
Posted in: Finnish, Releases. Leave a Comment

I’m back from NRGetic Romancer, and finally have time to mention that there is currently a mountain of new Hybridize tunes being released over at FINRG. Anyone who’s been to Hell’s Gate, or reading my tracklists here, will know about a good few of them – but there also are plenty of great hard trance tracks that are a bit too slow for me to be able to play in my own sets.

I’m not exactly a neutral when it comes to Hybridize, but I can honestly say that there are some absolutely blinding tunes in this newer batch – maybe those getting most play from me so far have been Distant Illusions, Fear of Reality, Celestea and Raindrops. Don’t forget that the tunes first released on CD have been mp3-ed, too, including Nomic’s new tunes, Alone With Me and Polyhedra 08.

NRGetic Romancer timetable

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 21, 2009
Posted in: Events, Japanese. Leave a Comment

1am here, so NRGetic Romancer is officially today! The past few days have been spent madly trying out different mix combinations, and I probably have a million ideas at the moment – hopefully that’ll narrow down a bit by the time I play.

Anyway, the timetable has been announced, and although I’m replacing Cogi, my play time is pretty late – starting at 12.50am, I’ll be playing for 1hr 10mins, which is the longest ever at an event. Really exciting, as that gives me plenty of room to play all sorts of stuff, instead of turning it into a semi-megamix in 40mins. The Full Circle set will be only 30mins this time, but I think it could be very unique indeed, I’m looking forward to it a lot.

東京に住んでいる方は明日是非遊びにきて下さい。ゲストで２０００円になります！よろしくお願いします。

11.00 – gokuraku & Yuusuke

12.50 – PlasmaDancer

2.00 – Full Circle DJs

2.30 – Betwixt & Between

3.20 – Guld

Tyranoid – Intra Operative Awareness

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 21, 2009
Posted in: Finnish, Mixes. Leave a Comment

A little late with this one (when am I anything else, these days?), but I really wanted to recommend Tyranoid’s new mix. Throwing together industrial, NRG and freeform, this is really ambitious and works incredibly well.

This is a little similar to the ‘different’ kind of mix I was thinking of doing a couple of months ago, but there’s no way I could match this one – Tyranoid really knows his stuff.

The tracklist:

01 Front Line Assembly – Mortal
02 Combichrist – This Shit Will Fuck You Up
03 Panzer AG – Filth God (Tyranoid/Strongstream remix)
04 Combichrist – Today I Woke to the Rain of Blood
05 Front Line Assembly – Infra Red Combat
06 Ultraform – I’m in Your Head
07 Blender – Illogical
08 Epyx & Cyrez – Static Response
09 Front Line Assembly – Synthetic Forms
10 Twisted Freq – Sin Cells
11 Tyranoid/Strongstream vs Substanced – Still Hope?
12 Nomic – You Have a Dream
13 Blender & Nomic – Battle of Dawn
14 Sabes – Machines

Download here

NRGetic Romancer, 27th December 2008

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 18, 2009
Posted in: Events, Japanese. Leave a Comment

Only a few days until NRGetic Romancer now, and as I still haven’t seen any sign of the photos from the event, I thought it might be worth quickly posting up some of my hazy memories along with some YouTube videos, for those who haven’t seen them yet.

Android Lime was playing there as a guest, of course, but the rest of the DJs also did a great job as always. I only caught the end of gokuraku and Yuusuke’s set, but recognised a couple of schranz numbers from their previous sets. Great warm-up material, once again.

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City of Solitude in Proteus’ Top Ten

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 18, 2009
Posted in: Finnish, Japanese, Top Tens. 2 comments

Goodness me, a week’s passed and no posts – sorry about that. I’ve been desperately trying to sort out a set for NRGetic Romancer on Saturday, it’s coming together at last, but time’s getting a bit short… While my ears are recovering from the last session, I’ll try to catch up on a few newsworthy things tonight.

First of all, Proteus has included Guld’s remix of City of Solitude in his newest top ten. As far as I know it’s the first time a Guld track has made it in there, so big congrats are due. I tend to agree with all of Proteus’ top tens, and this one especially – I haven’t heard that Stereo Junks remix, but I’m 100% with him on the rest. Check it out on Proteus’ site.

Bukem in Session, 21st March @Unit

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 11, 2009
Posted in: Drum & Bass, Japanese, UK. Leave a Comment

Ok, this might not mean much to some of the freeform heads out there, but I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to next month. LTJ Bukem is, in my opinion, the best DJ in the business, and his mixing, track selection and set construction inspired me right from when I started listening to ambient/intelligent drum and bass as a 13 or 14 year old. Growing up in darkest Wales though, I never had a chance to get to any of his live sets at Dreamscape, Speed etc (plus I was too young, really), and so to finally get to see him play here in Tokyo, 13 or 14 years later, is amazing.

[Click down below to have a listen to my favourite Bukem set from back in the day]

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PlasmaDancer joins NRGetic Romancer!

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 10, 2009
Posted in: Events, Japanese. 3 comments

What a start to 2009…I’m incredibly pleased to announce that I’ll be joining the staff of NRGetic Romancer – starting with the event on the 21st of this month! It’ s a little less than two years ago that I went to my first NRGetic Romancer, and to now be playing there alongside Full Circle DJs, Betwixt & Between and Guld himself is genuinely a dream come true. The one disappointment is that Cogi won’t be playing this time – he’s had to cancel, and that’s the main reason that my debut is coming a little earlier than planned.

So, huge thanks to Guld – I’m determined to repay his faith and really come up with an NRGetic Romancer-worthy first set. Once again though I also have to thank Zio and the Hell’s crew, as without them this almost definitely wouldn’t have happened at all. I’m going to have to change my style a bit though, because (for obvious reasons) I won’t be playing any tracks by Guld, Betwixt & Between or Full Circle DJs. It might be quite a challenge, but instead I’ll be aiming mostly for a best of FINRG/Hybridize set. After a couple of years as a raver there, I think I know what kind of tracks appeal to the NRGetic Romancer crowd, after all.

Final mentions for the fantastic flyer design, courtesy of Android Lime himself – great work once again. As for me, planning for the next set begins now!

Last Dance, 31st January

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 5, 2009
Posted in: Events, Japanese. Leave a Comment

The final Hell’s Gate event ended in fine style on Saturday, with a really upbeat atmosphere despite everyone’s disappointment that another hard event has bitten the dust in Tokyo. The general play style was hard house/hardtrance, but DJ Minagi as well as yours truly played hard NRG/freeform this time. As you might have seen from the timetable a few days ago, I was scheduled to play last, and so didn’t really want to use up what little energy I had left after work by overdoing the dancing – I probably did anyway, though. There were so many DJs this time that my memory of some sets is a bit hazy, but with the help of Soham’s photos and video I hope you’ll get a reasonable idea of what went on.

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