Endless commutes and 6-day workweeks are back again, meaning lots of time to check out the latest cluster of freeform sets. My favourite so far has to be Dyzphazia’s newest effort for the evergreen Freeformaniacs show, a wonderful selection of melodic, twisty freeform. This time around my pick of the connections is the early Bass Dust The Dome transition that does a superb job of switching up the atmosphere, but the whole set is top quality and easily one of Dyzphazia’s best this year. A must-listen, then.

1 ) Re-Form – Silver Cube (Extended Mix) [CDr] 
2 ) Noisia – Dustup [Vision Recordings] 
3 ) Blokhe4d & Receptor – Bass Dust [Bad Taste] 
4 ) Alchemiist – The Dome [CDr] 
5 ) Pain On Creation – Lush (Fatal Error Edit) [FiNRG] 
6 ) Nomic – Mekhanika Child [CDr] 
7 ) Carbon Based – Dark Side [FiNRG] 
8 ) Douglas & Lost Soul – False Sense Of Security [NuEnergy] 
9 ) Nightforce – Symphony For The Devil [Electronica Exposed] 
10 ) Wyrm & Surtr – Yggdrasil [Ruffbeatz/Freeformaniacs] 
11 ) Helical & Oli G – Days Of Thunder [Camel Records] 
12 ) Helikaon vs. Ephexis – Illiad [NuEnergy] 
13 ) Aryx – Aurora (Substanced Unfinished Forever Remix) [CDr] 
14 ) Le Dos-On – Sena [SPLASH! Energy Records] 

The voting is now open for Hardcore Heaven’s Awards, with a few new categories that’ll give some very welcome exposure to the freeform scene. Apparently it’s the first year for freeform to have a category of its own (with DJs and producers all under consideration at once), while there are plenty of other sections that might interest the TYFTH crew. Some might bemoan the suggestion here that freeform is just a UK hardcore subgenre (lets not start that tedious debate, mind), but surely anything that brings in new listeners and draws attention to the talented and hard-working members of our scene is a Good Thing indeed.

The ‘Stage 2’ voting is open until 5th November, so there’s still plenty of time to register your picks.

While the Japanese freeform scene continues to decline, thank the gods for Le Dos-on, who is already set to release his second artist album. Excellently titled Crying Beauty, this is looking very tasty indeed. Although a few of the tracks are definitely straying into UK territory, there’s also plenty of deep melancholy on show here – my early favourites are Morning for it, D and Le pt.2.

About time I mentioned this release from Hekatoncheir Beats, an excellent Japanese label that is doing a grand job of pushing some very nasty sounds. The HEKATONCHEIRES concentrates on schranz and dark drum and bass – during my recent little ustream experiment I managed to use both of my favourite tracks, Crafty Fact and running.

It’s well worth checking out the other releases on the label, as in addition to especially quality tracks from siromaru and ZOONOODLE you’ll find Betwixt & Between’s Enter the Void and Alabaster’s Evil Eye. I also picked up ZOONOODLE’s superb solo album Hai no Nioi, which while not really useable in an NRG/freeform set is full of inspiring, darker atmospheres.

Many thanks to Gaia for the initial heads-up!

What better way to start things off again than with another brand new tune? This week we have a superb track called Lost Elegy from Amini, a real rising star of the scene. He’s an inspiration to any rookie producers out there, as his progress over the past year has been just phenomenal, and really shows how much work he’s putting in (being pals with the rest of the Tampere freeform crew probably doesn’t hurt, either).

Anyway, Lost Elegy is an awesome track with a strong Substanced influence, but full of extra touches and the super-rough synth work that Amini is making something of a trademark these days. Many thanks to the man himself – TYFTH is honoured to be releasing this one, and I’ll be doing my best to make sure it reaches as many freeform fans as it should.

Now I’m back from my trip there are a couple of other TYFTH-related projects to deal with, one of which might even be ready to announce in about a week’s time. Oh, and I’ll try to catch up on mails, mixes and other stuff over the next few days. In the meantime, enjoy the track, and don’t forget to share this one (and indeed all the others) with anyone who might be interested.

Sadly (but not all that surprisingly) I’m running out of prep time before my trip tonight, so the couple of goodies I had planned will have to wait until I get back on the 17th. In the meantime then, feel free to add any interesting links/news/mixes etc to the comments section of this post. Or if you just fancy a chat, go right ahead. New commenters will need to be approved, but I might be able to manage that from my phone during my travels, especially as both Malaysia and Singapore are apparently more free-wifi-friendly than Tokyo (which isn’t difficult). I’ll be staying offline as much as possible though, so there’ll probably be no emailing and the like til I return.

Bye for now!

Byproduct’s latest set includes his excellent Concorde remix, and I’d say that’s enough of an excuse to make it the headlining post for today. This is a live PA that once again lives up to the description – even without the synth twiddlings that were surely part of the full performance, there’s plenty going on here with the track edits and lovely connections.

For those who (inexplicably) haven’t been keeping up with Byproduct lately this set will be a treat, with a lot of new material. Starting off with the downright hilarious-awesome remix of Gangnam Style (which thanks to my stubborn avoidance of YouTube trends I discovered through this tune), there are game remixes aplenty and some superb stuff from Byproduct himself.

Listen up above, download from Byproduct’s site, and enjoy a brief promo video of the event in sunny Lahti.

Well, thanks a million to everyone who listened to the ustream set tonight – I’m just sorry I wasn’t able to chat more, as even though it might not have been the best set ever I was still very busy with the connections. Anyway, as we mentioned in the chatroom I’ll try my best to do at least one TYFTH Live each month, probably on a Sunday evening.

I won’t record them, but unless there’s anything too top secret I’ll add the tracklist afterwards, starting tonight. At the start I was trying out some schranz, then playing a few new freeform tracks for the first time.

—–

[intro] Bjork – Mutual Core (Mr Bod remix)

00. Photek – UFO

01. Alek Szahala – Sunray (Android Lime remix)

02. Zoonoodle – Running

03. Marilyn Manson – Resident Evil Main Theme (J-Gear bootleg remix)

04. Vice Tek Heavy Industry – 3M3SIS

05. Siromaru – Crafty Fact

06. Guld – Hannya X

07. Alabaster – Evil Eye

08. Siromaru – Booster of Life

09. Hase – Attacker

10. Einhander – One Immortal (Earlystyle mix)

11. FEN Project – Mad Man

12. Proteus – I See Things That You Don’t See (Guld remix)

13. Black Light Discipline – For All You Heavy Hearted (Proteus Soittoversio remix)

14. Alek Szahala – Vengeance 2007

15. Substanced & Alchemiist – Skullcrush (Transcend & Dyzphazia remix)

16. Hase – Brionac

17. Transcend – The Purification

18. Alek Szahala – Pink Magic

19. Suge – Tanasinn

20. Qygen – Temporal Temple

21. Aquanox – Thunderbird


Live video by Ustream

Hopefully there’ll be some time later today to think more about what I’m playing tonight, but right now I’m actually in the midst of preparation for my trip to Malaysia and Singapore (this Wednesday). Anyway, there should be some interesting tunes on show (including a lovely non-freeform track by my brother that I might use as a sound check/warm up), so feel free to join the chatroom from 11pm Japan time (3pm UK, 5pm Finland).