Many thanks to everyone who tuned into last month’s Smiling Corpse podcast, and equally hearty thanks to Wyrm and the SC crew for the invitation to play – as always I’m hugely grateful for the support. The entire show has just been added to the Dead Happy archive, so let’s take the chance to look back at the two sets.

Putting my mix together was traumatic to say the least, as I did my very best to strike the balance between using sections from recent club events and not ending up with a structureless Frankenstein’s monster of a set. Personally I think I fell into that trap with Episode 7 of Munted! Monthly, but this time I considered how to use pre-existing stuff much more carefully and am far happier with the end result. Having said that, a few days before the deadline I hacked out 6 (!) tracks and had a proper (if manic) rethink, as it clearly didn’t have enough melancholy or relisten value.

As always, a massive thanks to the artists and labels who provided tunes – these sets couldn’t happen at all without your help. This time I was sold on Gestaltzerfall as an intro track the moment I heard it, and either by DJing sixth sense or blind luck (I know which one’s more likely) Prelude was the first tune I tried as a mix. Happily, Prelude has been a backup connection for the Freedom – Rise – Dilapidated section for a good few months now, and that really inspired me for the rest of the set. Fatal Flashback and Afraid was a recent find, while I’ve been playing around with the Neon Circuitboards – Gravity’s Rainbow – Darkstar section since Munted! in London. After much back and forth, I finally decided on Helix – Mohicans as the finale after playing the preceding 50mins a few times in practice. There’s just enough nastiness to link them both to the rest of the set, before heading off into that magical, melancholy direction.

Of course the set’s far from perfect, but given my time restrictions these days I was really glad to see how some of the Krafty listeners enjoyed it on the night – it made all the hair-tearing and kickdrum-induced headaches worthwhile. By the way, a couple of the ‘CDR’ tracks here are headed for release (or at least, announcement of a release) very soon indeed, and will likely sound even nicer as here I used unmastered/older versions.

01) Guld – Gestaltzerfall [CDR]
02) Epyx & Cyrez – Prelude [Electronica Exposed]
03) Proteus – Freedom [CDR]
04) Thanatos – Rise (Render Regalia remix) [Allkore]
05) ikaruga_nex – Dilapidated [Fukyagaku Hardcore] / ikaruga_nex – Dilapidated 2013 [Freeformatted]
06) Carbon Based – Fatal Flashback [FINRG]
07) Nomic – Afraid [CDR]
08) Twisted Freq – Alien [Electronica Exposed]
09) Qygen – Neon Circuit Boards [CDR]
10) Betwixt & Between – Gravity’s Rainbow [Hardcore Tano*C]
11) Alek Szahala – Darkstar [Electronica Exposed]
12) Betwixt & Between – Ultra World 6 [CDR]
13) Blender & Nomic – Battle of Dawn [CDR]
14) Twisted Freq – Saturn Atmosfear [Volatile Digital]
15) Aryx – Helix [CDR]
16) Alek Szahala – Last of the Mohicans (Remix) [CDR]

Download here

Let’s not forget Wyrm’s fantastic second hour though – his set was full of unexpected twists, from hard techno to psy via plenty of unreleased SC material. After a timely Happy Birthday, Wyrm went heavy on the harder tracks (Rhythmic Tool being a standout for me), followed by some quality new freeform. I hadn’t heard Custom Built DJs’ Pneumatic or Qygen’s superb remix of Tendrils of Reality before, while it was lovely to hear Qygen’s tribute to Betwixt & Between – Kimura Kaoru no Densetsu – being used so effectively in a set. Add Dodomeki to the list and you really see the strength in depth of Smiling Corpse’s upcoming releases. Some typically nutty psy has also been very skilfully woven into the set, making this a genuine must-listen if you didn’t catch it at the time.

01) Flute Guy – Happy Birthday
02) Mechanical Brothers vs. Instigator – Frozen Hell [Cannibal Society]
03) Wyrm & Surtr – Tesseract [Electrode]
04) Greg Notill & Slugos – Rhythmic Tool [Cannibal Society]
05) Tyranoid & Strongstream – Stalingrad (Osmo Remix) [FiNRG]
06) Greg Notill – Conscient but Denied (Instigator Remix) [Kube Records]
07) Custom Built DJ’s – Pneumatic [F/C Smiling Corpse]
08) Anon – Manix#1 [F/C Buzzin’ Bootlegs]
09) Cosmic Lizard vs. Metahuman – K-Jah! [Lunatic Alien Records]
10) Ikaruga_Nex – Dodomeki [F/C Smiling Corpse]
11) Qygen – Kimura Kaoru no Densetsu [F/C Smiling Corpse]
12) Oxidaksi – White Weirdo [Cryptic Symmetry Records]
13) Substanced – Reptile Zoo [FiNRG]
14) Wyrm – Tendrils of Reality (Qygen Remix) [F/C Smiling Corpse]

Download here

I’ve now had a chance to listen to both sets from last weekend’s SC podcast, and it’s a big recommend for anyone else who missed the live event. Wyrm’s set in particular is a fantastic hour that sets a new standard of mixing modern freeform with dark psy, obviously really well-considered with a nice consistent theme all the way through. This is helped by a couple of amazing Qygen tracks – 60Hz Power Rave has to be one of the most impressive tracks so far this year. As always, it’s hard to combine harder freeform with psy, but Wyrm does a fine job, and the trippy breakbeat of Funkin’ Jungle is a lovely selection.

Horzi’s set is more conventional, but maybe that’s no bad thing after the experimental sounds of Wyrm. Heavy on the brand-new FINRG releases, there’s also an interesting choice of the two Elementz Records releases towards the end, as well as a pitched up Fist of the North Star.

A great show then – wander along to the Smiling Corpse site for tracklists and download links.