I completely forgot about this, but before my holiday I signed up for a SoundCloud account. I haven’t heard much about it in the freeform scene, but it’s been getting good feedback from other DJs/producers, and so I’ve finally added (almost) all of my mixes.

If you haven’t seen it before, it’s very user-friendly, and allows you to stream a mix before downloading it (complete with a very nice clickable waveform), and even leave comments on certain points of the track or mix that you liked. You can also ‘follow’ interesting artists, that sort of thing, but from what I can tell none of the Finnish guys are using it yet. From now on I’ll be uploading sets there, so I’ll update the Mixes section here ASAP.

One last thing, the Hybridize x NRGetic Romancer set will be uploaded very soon, but I haven’t forgotten about the people who asked for CDs - they haven’t arrived yet, but I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything.

Thanks to the mysterious Mr Bod for pointing out that the April NRGetic Romancer set link has been dead for a while now. I’m having some trouble with Mediafire, so for the time being I’ve uploaded it to the not-so-user-friendly Rapidshare: Download here if you missed it before.

Sorry to say I didn’t have time to go to Tano*C yesterday afternoon, but as I was free in the evening I decided to see Yoji play for the first time at UNIT in Daikanyama. I’d noticed that Kangu was going, but wasn’t really expecting many other people I knew…it was a nice surprise then to see a huge group of NRGetic Romancer guys and girls there too, including Guld. He said the same as me, he didn’t think anyone else would be there (but being a family man these days he had to bail out before Yoji’s 3am set). Zio was there too, the first time we’ve managed to meet up for quite a while.

Anyway, as I was expecting, a lot of the music wasn’t really my thing - just incredibly, incredibly slow (Zio kept telling me ‘the bpm isn’t going to get any faster tonight, you know’)…the basement floor had some slightly faster tunes (played by DJ Torikai, Mad Child, Overflow and Rinrin), but as Guld said, the speakers were a disaster - tiny and struggling with the bass. On the main floor I was only there for Yoji, as Remo-con has been pretty disappointing every time I’ve seen him, and most of the NRG crew seemed to be thinking the same.

Everyone was hoping for some older tunes, but Yoji stuck pretty much to his current style, starting off again with his anthem Airport. The rest of the set was mostly similar catchy/simple melodies with a slow heavy kick, but most of the crowd loved it, and UNIT was absolutely packed. His stage presence was as good as people say, but I wasn’t brave enough to go too far into the crowd (I was in about the same spot as Soham in his video above). I had to leave before the end of his set, but it was definitely worth taking the chance to see Yoji at long last. Next week is the Trance Enough vs Hell’s Gate event, wonder if I’ll have the energy for that too..

Recently upped, here’s the video for the previous Hardcore Tano*C in Tokyo. If you’re not so interested in the anime-themed J-Core, skip to around 4.40 where Betwixt and Between plays alongside Alabaster - using the name ‘Butabaster’ (combining Alabaster with Betwixt’s other alias, Butabanahakase). Looks like it was a really interesting set, and I’ll definitely be going tomorrow if they do something similar… Having said that, looks like there were some nice tunes from the other artists too.

It’s already been and gone, but congratulations to Loki and the FUNERAL crew in Nagoya for their 4th Anniversary event this month. I expect you can guess from the photo, but Betwixt & Between was the guest this time (following on from Guld at the last event), and I’m hoping some video might show up sometime soon. [photo courtesy of SHINOSAN]

A couple of events coming up soon - this Saturday is Hardcore Tano*C’s 11th Strike, once again at Shibuya’s claustrophobic amate-raxi. I might see if I can get to this one, but if Alabaster’s up first again it’ll be a long wait before Betwixt’s set…

The other event is a suprise and welcome return for Hell’s Gate, in another vs event with the Trance Enough DJs. I would have liked to give some of my Hell’s Gate tracks a play, but there’s no sign of me getting on the lineup for this one… Yoshimasa has decided to coax Zio out of semi-retirement though, which is a Very Good Thing. The rest of the lineup is a bit eclectic, take a look below:

YOSHIMASA (HARDHOUSE SET)
MUNETICA
ZIO
Hecto-pascal
A2C
MKT
擂夢
TAKEHIRO
AEMI
syun
yuta-
No KA-NA either, so there might not be much freeform this time. The last event at M’s was pretty good fun though, so I’ll probably be heading along.

I’m back in one piece from Hanoi/Taipei! Sorry for the lack of updates, but the we’re back in business again now - just a shame I wasn’t able to get to any of the the events yesterday.

First was Operation Karma, once again in Kawasaki. I was absolutely set on getting to this one, but for some reason it ran from about 3pm to 9pm, and I was still on the plane… Anyway, there should be a few more videos/photos from Soham coming soon - here’s a great one of Minagi and MT playing Endstille and Operation Stardust.

While I was in Hanoi Buzzmasta let me know about Hardcore Baby’s Revenge, also happening last night at Shibuya’s Deseo. Originally Orbit 1 was supposed to be the special guest, but he cancelled for reasons that I don’t know just yet, and so Yousuke/Buzzmasta finished off a night including DJ Zet, Shimamura and other happier DJs.

The last one was Tokyo Hardcore Construction, and although there was no Kanon or Betwixt & Between this time, I would have liked to get to this one too….

Not really, of course. I am going to Taiwan and Vietnam on holiday though, and won’t be back until the 20th of this month (I haven’t got time to post the flyer, but there’s a Tokyo Hardcore Construction on that day, too).

Anyway, it means that I won’t be posting much at all for the next couple of weeks. It’ll be worth checking here now and then though - if I can get online while in Vietnam I might be able to up something that’s been on the to-do list for a while…

NRGetic Romancer’s 5th Anniversary last month reminded me about the 4th Anniversary DVD, so I dug it out again this week. Hard to believe, but I’ve been a regular as a customer and DJ for over 2 and a half years now, so I recognise quite a lot of the footage/photos…I’m even in a couple of sequences, dancing badly.

Anyway, after checking with Guld and VX Pasta, I’ve now got permission to put it online for the first time - for people who haven’t made it there yet, this gives you a great idea of the energy/atmosphere at a typical NRGetic Romancer…hope you enjoy it.

Now, the Cubizm event isn’t really aimed at hardcore/freeform fans, but to promote the next event on the 18th, DJ Yousuke has come up with two new mixes. The first starts of with vocal house, which I absolutely despise, to be honest, but it rips through the genres and ends up with drum and bass…before somehow going back to house again. If you’re into electro/house/that sort of stuff it could be an interesting set for you, but for the rest of us it might be worth checking out the second mix of liquid drum and bass. It’s very (very) well mixed, and there are some nice melodic tracks as well as the less good ’sped up pop music’ tunes that seem to be pretty common these days - it’s a nice set to chill out to anyway, despite the high bpm. I recognise a few of the tunes, but on a first listen the only one I could confidently name was Blu Mar Ten’s Believe Me…I might still be playing drum and bass too if all the tunes were that good.