Almost a week since the last post, and as luck would have it quite a lot has happened lately. First of all, here’s what must be one of the tunes of the year – Proteus’ Get Fire! This is a truly fabulous track that brings back memories of old FINRG releases, while still keeping that modern Proteus feel. Check out the oldskool Carbon Based-style sounds towards the end of the preview…It’s already scheduled for release on Watchtower, the excellent new label that will be launching very soon. Stay tuned for more info!
Members of the Freeform Forum will have seen this announcement already – Dyzphazia (our man Chip) and Midas are setting up Munted! Monthly!, a freeform-only show on Krafty Radio, and I’m honoured to have been invited to play a guest set on the first edition. DJ Douglas of Hard Beats Collective is the other guest, making an impressive four hours’ worth of full-on freeform.
This is a fantastic opportunity to get freeform even more exposure, and the ‘global’ angle of the DJ selections should result in the Krafty crew hearing some artists/styles for the first time. I usually like to take a few years to pick tunes for a set, but I’ll be doing my best to choose some must-listen Japanese tunes amongst the new releases/promos. Thanks a million to Chip and Midas for a very rare chance to show what the Tokyo scene is all about.
Hopefully there’ll be a good TYFTH contingent listening on the 17th – it all starts at 10pm GMT on Krafty Radio.
Only a few days before Destroyed High, and I’m currently going without sleep to try and decide which tunes might work at such a mixed-genre event. In the meantime, profiles of each of the DJs have been added to the Destroyed High site, and while it’s really one for the Japanese crew, there’s enough sprinkling of English to get the gist of everyone’s style, at least. The main floor is probably going to work out nicely, with DJ HELL’s hard house, hardcore/gabber from 490, dark psy from Sh1nmei, various flavours of hard dance from Dairin, and NRG-to-freeform from me.
More from raqhow, this time a Japan-only set with a few classics alongside some less familiar freeform tracks. It’s the first time for me to hear tracks by the very promising Le Dos-on, while Sea Rapture has a nicely melodic breakdown. Great work from raqhow to give these artists a chance to be heard, and his mixing is also improving with every set – there are some very nice connections that do a good job of breaking the intro/outro pattern here.
I don’t have much time for posts tonight, but here’s something I couldn’t let pass – regular Horser raqhow’s experience event is having a 2.5 edition this evening, and it’s currently streaming live! Sadly raqhow himself isn’t playing, so there might not be much/any freeform on show, but for the J-Core crowd it’s already looking like a fun event, and well worth checking out.
Time for another energetic freeform session from Mr B, covering just about every angle of the scene. The first half will please the melodic crew, while the second half (from Operation Stardust) takes a welcome turn for the twisted with Unholy Word, Surendrajit and a nice contrast in Nephila.
The more familiar tunes haven’t shown up in recent sets, so even without many elaborate connections Minotaur makes for a really enjoyable hour or so – I’m sure I’ve said this before about Beezee’s sets, but this would a great one to hear in a club setting.
1. Grimsoul – Jaan Hautaamat (Oli G Remix)
2. Trancend – Mindglow
3. DJ RX – Code Of Silence (Sam One Remix)
4. Alabaster – Fluorite
5. Lost Soul – Tentacles Of Love
6. Andy Dee – Solas An Lae
7. Nightforce & Substanced – Operation Stardust
8. Alek Szahala – Unholy World
9. Betwixt & Between – Surendrajit (2011 Refix)
10. Aryx – Nephila
11. DJ Noriken – Moonlight Cluster
Transcend’s upcoming remix of Seismic Activity is actually the first in a series of remixes for Substanced’s album, When the World Collapses. This is a perfect choice for a UK-style remix, and Transcend has done a great job making the most of that catchy main melody.
Stay alert for more previews – there are some potentially amazing tracks under construction.
After another busy week of selling adventure tours to Mt. Fuji (via Oedo Castle), I’ve finally got time to catch up on a few things on TYFTH. I’ll be back with a post or two this evening…
Anyone reading TYFTH will probably have checked out this certified must-listen set already, but here’s a belated post for those who don’t know. After Aryx’s fantastic Chaldea and Aurora, the question was always going to be whether he could possibly match them and keep his inspiration up…
Well the answer’s a big yes – the first half of his Freeformaniacs set is mind-blowingly good, and there’s no doubt that Aryx is now right at the top of the trancy freeform tree, alongside Alek/Paocala. He’s still (understandably) got some work ahead to match Alek’s all-round quality, but the standard here is already amazingly high – among the wonderful new material are little glimmers here and there of the emotional, deeper freeform that we so rarely hear these days, and that’s what makes the set so exciting.
The rest of the set is a nice combination of older tracks, though the more UK freeform-sounding melodies of Transmission can’t quite live with the rest of the quality on show, it might have been nicer to hear something a bit more aggressive/melancholy before Inexistenz.
Anyway, massive congratulations (and Happy Birthday) to Aryx – hopefully this set will get the recognition it deserves!
Another non-freeform post, but one of my main inspirations this past year has been Romanian Goa artist E-Mantra, particularly his incredible Arcana. Earlier this month saw the release of his second album through Suntrip, and while on a first listen through the tracks (Metamorphic Resonance is up the top there) Pathfinder doesn’t match the brooding atmosphere of Arcana, there’s some excellent stuff in there, including a couple of fantastic downtempo tunes.
I’ll be ordering a copy asap – check out the Suntrip site for more info (plus a very tasty-looking E-Mantra/Artifact303 showcase set that I haven’t had time to download yet).
