Releases

In Praise of Shadows / TYFTH Live in 2025

Posted by PlasmaDancer on January 7, 2025
Posted in: Finnish, Japanese, Releases, USA. 2 comments

Happy New Year!

TYFTH had to take December off for many reasons, but things are slowly waking up again this month. The first important announcement is overdue, though I did share something on the FINRG discord – In Praise of Shadows is no longer available on the BigCartel site, and instead Booth is the way to go. It’s a Japanese site but fairly friendly in terms of English support, so placing orders shouldn’t be too much of an ordeal. It goes without saying, but feel free to get in touch via any of the usual places if you have trouble ordering and I’ll do my best to help. Without going into too much detail there are some financial perils looming over TYFTH HQ at the moment, which means that recent orders have genuinely been helping to keep the lights on at the TYFTH SoundCloud, and even the site itself.

What else? I was a bit disappointed by how TYFTH petered out at the end of last year, but even so it was one of my most productive years of mixing for a long time, with two or three sets that I’m still listening to regularly. The plan is to really give Twitch a good go during the rest of this month and next, which’ll mean some improvised sets in between the ultra-planned installments. Whether they’ll get the TYFTH Live tag or not, the hope is to step things up from the semi-monthly situation of last year and make freeform/NRG sets more visible again. In between there’ll be some bigger sets, including the postponed effort for FINRG. Things might even start this coming weekend, when I’m considering a 2024-only stream.

Stand by for some other posts, including some set recommendations that I’ve been sitting on for way too long. There’ll be other huge 2025 announcements as and when (too soon for anything just yet), but that’s enough to be getting on with for now.

momokan – Escape the Time

Posted by PlasmaDancer on June 5, 2024
Posted in: Chinese, Goa / Psy, Japanese, Releases. 7 comments

One of the other big releases recently was a lot less conventional than Ephemanent, showing what a good state the scene is in these days – at least in terms of new tracks being produced. Escape the Time is more on the freeform fringes, what with the very strong psy/hi-tech influences, but it’s definitely worth a TYFTH mention as one of the most diverse EPs there’s been for a while.

While the first two tracks are probably the furthest from freeform, I really enjoy the progression of Impending Flux and the goa-esque melodies that appear in the second half. This is one that really could find a good home in a darker, psychedelic set. Depths of Phantasmagoria starts as my favourite track on the EP, but slightly loses steam by heading in a less goa direction from the breakdown onwards. Following that is the excellent new version of Cinder Glade, then more quality Nirotiy, this time with a remix of Elk Cloner.

Although this might not be an EP you’ll have on repeat given how unusual most of the tracks are, there are some brilliant ideas in here and it deserves support. There’s a lot of mixing potential here too, so there’ll very likely be a future TYFTH set appearance for at least a couple of these.

Ephemanent

Posted by PlasmaDancer on June 4, 2024
Posted in: Chinese, Japanese, Releases. 11 comments

With a big list of posts on the to-do list, let’s get going with one of the more obvious ones. Or is it that obvious, given that it’s on the lighter side? Either way, Ephemanent from Chinese label Thoughost is as good a compilation of melodic freeform as you’ll find anywhere this year, even with plenty of it around at the moment.

Overall it shows a strong Japanese/UK influence with breakbeats, pianos, and breakdowns long enough to take a little nap before the drop – but this is high quality stuff, and many of the melodies are a step above what we tend to hear these days. I used quite a few in my TYFTH Live set (more on that pretty soon) and while they are some of the strongest on the compilation there are some more typical TYFTH tracks tucked away in here too. The favourite for me is probably MiYAjY’s Nightmare Trigger, an aggressive track that builds into a quality atmosphere, partly thanks to those nicely gritty filters. Joulez’s Bezerk is also a highlight, with a Betwixt feel to the structure and melodies.

Elsewhere it’s more of what you’d expect, with two great contributions from Nirotiy to finish things off. Perhaps not a gold star TYFTH recommendation – only a few of the tracks would be contenders for me in a ‘normal’ TYFTH set – but if you’re looking for a break from the dark side and want to build up your collection of modern melodic freeform, this is definitely the place to start.

Khaosnet Civilization Vol. 4

Posted by PlasmaDancer on May 22, 2024
Posted in: Goa / Psy, Japanese, Releases. 2 comments

The recent M3 event in Tokyo was a big one for freeform, with a cluster of albums and EPs released. Until the last minute I was supposed be there too, but thankfully everything I had my eye on has since become available online/digitally. Although last weekend’s TYFTH Live featured a few of the new tracks (more on that soon), it didn’t end up including anything from the most TYFTH-friendly album of them all – Khaosnet Civilization Vol.4.

Impressively from a lineup heavy on newer artists (and even the more experienced here haven’t been around for that long) the track selection gave me some In Praise of Shadows-esque first impressions. Granted there’re some uplifting sounds here and there, but the album as a whole sounds like it’s taking on the darker and deeper sounds that IPoS was trying to resurrect. No NRG here though – it’s freeform all the way with some of the bpms really getting up there.

Picking a track of the album is tough, but I’ll go for Elfen lied – instantly my all-time favourite Kokomochi track, the first five minutes or so is some of the best dark freeform you’ll hear all year (in a year when there’s actually some competition). Add in some Guld-esque filtered melodies and you have one heck of a track, which is already on the to-play list for my darker FINRG set.

Other highlights for me are Ri-nergy’s Empty Dream, Samiyama’s Azelf, and polaritia’s Strange Dream, but truth be told the quality level is very high throughout. Even Kannami’s Lose Control, a track that seems to have more of a Transcend/UK freeform influence, adds more darkness than you’d expect with some weighty filters.

Compilation of the year, then? It’s in the lead for now, I’d say. Congrats to Kokomochi on this release – another sign of hope in a scene that really seems to be waking up again.

Nirotiy – Ray of Oblivion

Posted by PlasmaDancer on April 21, 2024
Posted in: Chinese, Releases. Leave a Comment

Some will have heard this pretty spectacular acid freeform track when it appeared on Nirotiy’s SoundCloud recently. Following up one of the best ever remixes of an Alek track isn’t easy, but Ray of Oblivion makes a fine job of it, keeping the Alek influence but sounding much more experimental than Iron Squid.

What you might not have noticed was its release on the huge compilation of harder Chinese sounds The Silent Xosmos -United and Unbound –. While the compilation itself is far too all over the place to get a TYFTH gold star, Irish Kappa’s Fabulous Action and Valtrax’s Recall are two quality freeform tracks on the melodic side. Have a browse through the rest of the album for everything from hardstyle to makina – if you have a Shimo-level range of listening/mixing tastes then this could be the album for you.

Yogga* – SONEDA_ADENOS

Posted by PlasmaDancer on April 7, 2024
Posted in: Goa / Psy, Releases. 4 comments

It’s no secret that getting the psychedelic/goa influence back into freeform is one of my goals these days, but interestingly this lovely album is coming at things from the opposite direction. Clearly from a psy/goa background (or at least with more experience in that area), Yogga* shows a good ear for when and how to introduce NRG/freeform sounds to all seven of the tracks here.

It’s probably the kick and bass that most betray the lack of freeform experience (and the occasional happy hardcore-esque combined kick and clap definitely takes some getting used to), but get past that and you’re in for an excellent listen. If anything, the opening track (Seratonin) is the least freeform of them all, sounding more like a pacy, acoustic goa set-ender. Still a lovely track, mind, nicely setting up the atmosphere for the rest of the album.

Oxytocin is one I can definitely imagine fitting into a freeform set, with some excellent goa acid and filtered synths leading into a quality breakdown. Unfortunately it is on the shorter side – the album is seemingly put together to be listened to in its entirety, which means DJs might have trouble with a couple of the tracks (the excellent Dopamin, especially). Saying that, they’re in a pretty consistent key and it wouldn’t be difficult to mix a few of them back to back – the beautiful Endorphine and Melatonin are two of the most emotional, psychedelic tracks and would be an especially nice combo, I suspect.

What a unique, enjoyable album this is, then. Fitting some of these into a set could be perfect way to introduce some new atmospheres – I’ll be having a practice with them very soon.

Carbon Based – Kraateri Retouch / Reincarnation

Posted by PlasmaDancer on March 14, 2024
Posted in: Finnish, Goa / Psy, Releases. Leave a Comment

It’s highly likely that I missed an announcement about this at the time (especially now that I’ve escaped the clutches of most social media), but either way this is a first TYFTH mention of Carbon Based’s ridiculously good Kraateri EP. Apparently it sneaked out in the middle of last year, making it one of the best releases of 2023.

The first track is what you’d expect, a remastered version of the original that still stands up to anything in that bpm range of twisty-melodic NRG. It’s with Reincarnation that things really get interesting though, as this is a superb new version that takes the atmosphere to another level. Crucially it still sounds nice and gritty in the NRG filtering, but the goa influence that was always there in founding FINRG releases has more depth and clarity than you’d typically have heard in the early years.

This is one of FINRG’s strongest releases for quite a while, and deserves all the support if you’re like me and missed it the first time around. All the digital stores have their problems but I’m linking beatport here – it’s likely available elsewhere too.

B.R.K. – Enlightened by Darkness

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 28, 2024
Posted in: Italian, Releases, UK. 1 comment

If you’re missing NRG after all the freeform releases lately, take a look at this superb EP by B.R.K, released on Eryk Orpheus’ Intelli-trance label earlier this month.

It goes without saying that B.R.K’s composition has been top drawer from the very early days, and the production levels have steadily improved with each album release. Here though some mastering wizardry from Eryk Orpheus has definitely taken things up a step, with the whole release sounding like the cleanest of Lab4 productions.

It’s more NRG than hard trance, as you’d expect, but on the uplifting side when the melodies kick in. My favourite though is Rome Will Burn Down with its guitar-led breakdown (played by the man himself, I expect), bringing some deeper atmospheres to the usual B.R.K. formula.

Listening through the whole release makes you release how long it’s been since we’ve had something similar – make sure to show some support for this one.

Alek Szahala – Blood from the Sky

Posted by PlasmaDancer on February 1, 2024
Posted in: Finnish, Releases. Leave a Comment

We’ve already talked plenty about Blood from the Sky, Alek’s superb new dark freeform track, but surprisingly it isn’t releasing on FINRG after all. Instead it’s available for free on Alek’s own SoundCloud, which as a track of the year contender makes this a massive treat. If you haven’t already, support Alek instead by picking up 5396 miles and/or Ten Thousand Homeworlds from his bandcamp. Maybe even with a little extra added to cover Blood from the Sky?

Alek Szahala – Iron Squid (Nirotiy’s Remix)

Posted by PlasmaDancer on January 5, 2024
Posted in: Chinese, Finnish, Releases. Leave a Comment

We already know that the Chinese scene has the best up-and-coming DJs in freeform, but this utterly great track from Nirotiy shows that they could have the production side covered soon, too. It takes a brave soul to remix one of Alek’s tracks, especially when done by ear with no midi files to lean on – Nirotiy has done a superb job of recreating Iron Squid’s psychedelic melodies, as well as referencing the original track with some wonderful, growling synths. Even the new approach to the structure hits the spot, while the breakdown feels fresh in this new setting. A textbook example on how to update an anthem, in other words, making it the first contender for track of the year.