Finally a chance to give Alderz’ ode to Nomic a quick shout – a shorter mix here, but as you’d expect it’s really worth checking out. Alderz has been rummaging through the promo drawer for this one, yet avoided the fatal error of throwing unreleased tunes into a set willy-nilly – there’s a great structure to the set, with the added bonus of some less well-known tunes alongside the classics. Wonderful to hear Awa again, and Holocaust is a great choice from Nomic’s massive list of ‘set finishing’ aggressive tracks.
Marking 200 likes on his Facebook page, Alchemiist has released a new tune via FINRG that happens to be one of the best I’ve heard for a long while. As nasty as you’d expect, this one has a little more of the atmopshere of his darker NRG tracks than usual, which is definitely no bad thing. An absolute must-download, but be sure to also ‘like’ his fan page if you haven’t already.
PlasmaDancer – Lucky Lotus, August 2013 by Plasmadancer on Mixcloud
I’ve had a couple more requests to put my Lucky Lotus set online, so here it is! The artists/DJs on the FINRG SoundCloud are pretty self policing these days in terms of what goes up there, and as in this case I don’t think the set is anywhere near the quality we should expect from FINRG I’ve dusted off Mixcloud instead. That’s not to say I was disappointed with what I came up with, mind, just it was always intended to be a one-off event-style set that showed off a few styles, not one for repeated listens.
Anyway, I was a bit unsure about where to pitch this one, but decided to go for some melodic sounds to start with (Beati Mortui aside) and then hit listeners with some harder, darker tracks. It got a pretty good response at the time, and I heard people picking out certain parts of the set that appealed to them, which is really what I was aiming for – if it inspired non-freeform fans to seek out some new tunes, then mission accomplished.
Have a listen and see what you think – apologies in advance for Face the Destiny – Neurotic and Toybox – Human Hater, those are the kind of lazy transitions I hate, though the rest of the set has a few old favourite connections from Ustream and Romancer.
Once again, time to start up TYFTH after a long absence – I’m just back from my holidays, and things will be back to semi-regular updates for the next few months. The next post will be a little something that’s been requested a few times now and will hopefully make up for the recent quietness, while I’ve got a few other projects on the go that should see the light of day before too long. Oh and I realise the TYFTH SoundCloud isn’t looking too healthy right now, but it’ll be back to its old account level in the next day or two.
By the way, the photo was taken last week in Yakushima, an awesomely beautiful island in Kagoshima prefecture.
Here’s a lovely new free release from between Qygen and Wyrm that ticks all the right boxes if you’re into psychedelic, dark freeform. One of those collabs that really does manage to sound like a melding of both artists’ sounds, Digital Torment is a must-download via the Smiling Corpse Facebook page (click the Free downloads! section).
The track also coincides with the big announcement of Qygen’s upcoming album, set to be a physical release.
Time for a confession here – this is the only time I’ve discovered a brilliant (released) tune of interest to TYFTH and decided to keep it away from the site for a while, saving it for use in a set/event. Now that CODEX has been and gone (more on that later), it’s about time to finally give a wider shout out to Thanatos’ wonderful remix of Rise, the main theme of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.
There’s quite a bit of ‘noisiness’ in the top end, but with so much sampling going on it’s easy to forgive, especially as Thanatos has done such a fine job with the track’s structure. I spent a very long time indeed thinking about the the connections into and out of this tune, and at least to my ears it fitted right into the atmosphere I was going for at CODEX (and indeed the connection will appear again in my next recorded set). The video up the top uses the radio edit of the track, but I’m sure you get the idea. Finally, massive thanks to Gaia for initially letting me know about the track, this has to be one of the best recommendations I’ve ever received.
edit: Big thanks to raqhow for reminding me of the link to buy the track – you can find it here.
The first set for a while from Nrgray is a nice 30 minute showcase of darker, melodic tracks. The big attraction here is obviously the Altered States version of Moving Flare, a beautiful tune that brings back lots of memories, but the set properly gets into its stride with Innocence into Morokai, nicely anchoring that all-important middle section of the mix.
1. ThermalForce – Moving Flare (Altered States) (CDR)
2. Transcend – Mindglow (Rebuild Music)
3. Nomic – Innocence (CDR)
4. Aryx – Morokai (Smiling Corpse)
5. Substanced & Alchemiist – Skullcrush (Transcend & Dyzphazia remix) (F/C FINRG Recordings)
6. Ikaruga_nex – Dodomeki (F/C Smiling Corpse)
Been quite busy this week, and too occupied with Codex prep to check out all the mixes that have appeared recently. Here are a couple though, and I’ll catch up on the rest asap – there’re some really tasty sets floating around at the moment.
First up is Dyzphazia’s Lucky Lotus set, a really interesting hour that eases into the freeform after a slower start. I went for a similar ‘rookie friendly’ start, but here the lower bpm works especially well, then moving up through the gears and eventually finishing with Hydra. Lots of newer stuff on show throughout, but for me the standout moment of the set was definitely the Skullcrush – Anthrax Injection combo, a really nice mix of melodies and nastiness that flows very well. A shame it doesn’t continue in the same vein a little longer, but you won’t find a bad tune in the tracklist, that’s for sure (though Pink Magic doesn’t actually seem to be in there..?).
- Marilyn Manson – Resident Evil Main Theme (J-Gear Bootleg) [CDr]
- Wyrm & Surtr – Tesseract [Electrode]
- Cosmic Gate – Back to Earth (Alchemiist Bootleg) [CDr]
- Alek Szahala – Lagash (Original Mix) [CDr]
- Betwixt & Between – East of Eden [CDr]
- Substanced & Alchemiist – Skullcrush (Transcend & Dyzphazia Remix) [F/C FiNRG]
- Alchemiist – Anthrax Injection [Smiling Corpse]
- Epyx & Cyrez – Unohdetut 2011 [Electrode]
- Yuki Kajiura – Mezame (Nomic Bootleg) [CDr]
- Proteus & Kevin Energy – London Helsinki Underground (Proteus Warcry Remix) [NuEnergy]
- Qygen – gXX-XeY-XQn 2010 [CDr]
- Alek Szahala – Pink Magic [FiNRG]
- Betwixt & Between – Hydra (Long Edit) [Hardcore Tano*C]
This is pretty old news now for anyone in Tokyo, but Studio Cube closed down a few months ago. The venue for NRGetic Romancer, Tokyo Hardcore Construction, and a variety of harder events, the loss of Cube is a massive blow to Tokyo’s underground club scene. Anyone who played/visited there will agree that the main floor PA was absolutely top drawer (better than any harder event I’ve attended here or outside Japan), while the layout was perfectly set up for the kind of serious dancing that went on at Romancer.
Coupled to that was Cube’s location – a winding 15-20 minute walk through the waterside hotels and side streets of Tamachi (an ‘armpit of Tokyo’ as a friend once described it) meant that anyone heading along to an event very likely knew what they were getting into. Unlike clubs in the standard entertainment districts, this meant that random Shibuya bimbos or Roppongi ‘clubbers’ were a mercifully rare sight, and instead it was always about the club’s wonderful community of dedicated, knowledgeable ravers. One of the very few places in Tokyo I’ve genuinely felt at home, finding a replacement is probably going to be impossible.
Anyway, RIP Studio Cube. I have plenty of awesome memories, but the video up above might be one of the best – Miran’s double mask dancing while I played Voices of Babylon, back in 2009.
Yet more releases from Le Dos-on, this time an upcoming EP on Relentless Digital. The track that caught my ear from the preview was Obsidian, but anyone into slightly lighter sounds will also find much to like in the other two. By all accounts there’s a lot of new Le Dos-on material set to appear on other labels too, I’m really looking forward to hearing which ones he picks for his Codex set next week.