The general CODEX6 roundup is still to come, but after Soham was kind enough to send over 25 minutes’ (!) worth of video I couldn’t resist jumping the gun a bit and putting it online with some Set-Planning Thoughts.

This was another set where I started with NRG, but expecting a lot of very fast sets from the rest of the crew (and playing right after AB) I upped the bpm to begin at 167bpm. Soham caught the whole intro, during which I tried to build up a dark atmosphere with brief emotional moments – I think it worked quite well, but the tracks aren’t the hardest and I maybe paid for it in ‘get the floor moving’ power. I wasn’t too worried about that though, as the plan was for more to come later.

Following one of the upcoming (and now mastered) TYFTH tracks, I sneaked the bpm up slightly with a two-track combo that was a proper honour to play. I made very sure to clear it with Proteus beforehand for obvious reasons, and thought that my first ever use of an Epilim track would mean even more if mixed with one Proteus’ own tunes. Rapid Fire still sounds glorious, and giving the CODEX crew (and me) the chance to enjoy Epilim’s proto-FINRG through a PA for the first time was very special.

The next video follows right on from Rapid Fire, when I tried to give the crowd a long break before a pretty intense semi-freeform section. Brionac’s breakdown never gets old, and Gozenzeuna is just a superb tune for some driving mid-set twistedness. It was the first time to try Rougher Than You in a mix, and while the connection wasn’t the cleanest it didn’t really need to be – angry and filtered were the keywords by this point. Worth mentioning that I followed it up with Betwixt & Between’s Phaedra, another first to use that one.

You’ll notice that real melodic tunes were pretty thin on the ground so far, as the idea was to save them, and some melancholy, for the very end. The last video shows most of this section – Nomic’s Rule Breaker, followed by a big current favourite in Like a Flame. I’ve never tried Hydra as an outro, but after a fair bit of work I’ve got some good candidates to follow LaF and it felt like the right set for it this time.

Overall I was really happy with how things went, and even if the set didn’t flow as well as my effort for the previous CODEX I hope the videos are an enjoyable watch. Another great experience to play as part of such a huge lineup, of course, and it’s pretty encouraging that so far all the In Praise of Shadows tracks have well and truly done the business through R-Lounge’s PA.