- Alek Száhala – Sunray (Unfinished Forever Edit) [play/download]
- Carbon Based & DJ Rx – Titor Quantum Theory [play/download]
- Aryx - Chaldea [preview]
- Betwixt & Between - point of no return
- Alek Száhala - Astraia
Narrowing May’s absolute top tracks down to just five proved to be extremely difficult, maybe I should start doing tens from now on. It was a busy month, and those moments there was time to sit down and enjoy beautiful melodies thus became a huge relief, to the point I was tempted to just start dancing, although that’d be a really awkward thing to do inside a train. Oh well.
On another note, the production quality of Slovenia’s new freeform producer Aryx is simply breathtaking, and I sincerely wish to see more coming from him. Other tracks that I’d have mentioned if the list was longer (this is kind of cheating), include Substanced’s Crank Cleopatra [play/download] and IAF’s Kinky [download].
- Alek Szàhala - Voices of Babylon
- Substanced - Freeform Mercury
- Carbon Based & DJ Rx - Biomechanoid
- DJ Rx - Hellfire (Betwixt & Between Remix)
- Ultraform - I Feel
This was intended to be published a lot earlier. I’d actually started a draft almost halfway back in June, but as things got busy with work and shit going on. Yeah, bad excuses all over again!!
Voices of Babylon was on the Proteus mix album released on Masif, so I finally got to hear it, and it’s flawless. Alek is a god at what he does, and his magic touch is still all over the place. Now I’ve got my fingers for an unmixed version to appear in the FINRG shop. Freeform Mercury is Substanced’s most intense track released yet, and it’s offered for free in the FINRG downloads section (along with a load of other recent Hybridize tracks), thanks to PlasmaDancer for spreading the word about them. Also look out for Ultraform, his track I Feel (also from the Proteus mix) mixes hard trance with a schranz-ish bass and makes for a really cool sound; definitely the darkest tunes I’ve heard from a Swedish artist. The guy’s got his first album Sense Your Mind up for free here, so checking him out won’t hurt your wallet!
The rule to narrow it down: released 2008 only.
#5: Betwixt & Between - たんこぶへそ太郎の放浪
This track didn’t get the chance to grow on me very much because of its recent release, but Betwixt delivers intense and hard music as always. The breakdowns are great, and the way he’s made a sense of movement within the music reminds me a bit of moving flare, a fantastic track he produced together with Hase some years back, even though they’re not at all similar in sound. I’m sure this track’ll get a lot of playtime for me through all of 2009.
#4: 源屋 - Judah’s Pain
As a minamotoya fan, he really surprised me with this super powerful freeform style. While I sure did enjoy his previous freeform attempt MISS YOU, the quality wasn’t anywhere near the other Japanese freeform producers (and for a guy normally produces UK hardcore, that’s not to be expected either way). This time he’s caught up with the other guys production quality-wise, I’m crossing my fingers for minamotoya taking his style even further this year.
#3: Alabaster – The Barrel Maze
I love the Donkey Kong Country series and its music, and had wished for at least one good arrangement to make up for all the godawful crap on shitdumps like OCReMiX. It came as a shock Alabaster put up a site for his new CD and the track list revealed he’d arranged The Stickerbrush Symphony! The Barrel Maze is an incredibly well produced freeform track, Alabaster has improved his style very rapidly in the last year.
#2: Betwixt & Between - Zusammengehörigkeit
It was about time Zusammengehörigkeit was put on a CD. I’m not sure when the first time I heard it was, Betwixt played it as part of one of his sets at some event, but I’d been impatiently awaiting its release ever since.The bassless melodic part followed by breakdowns, epic buildup and extreme hard bass sounds fresh every time.
#1: Betwixt & Between - wide awake
This extremely intense and melodic track ended up as my definite favorite of 2008. Tindaros and Invoker on HARDCORE TANO*C’s DiGiTAL GENERATiON EP made me realize his genius musical ability, but it was listening through wide awake that made me a freeform freak. Hard and dark progressive tunes with fine-balanced texture - Betwixt & Between does everything right.
