ReMix: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 'BigShellWestBristol'

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4,161,162 bytes, 4:20, 128kbps

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This is fantastic, a great addition to OC ReMix, and one of my personal favorite ReMixes hands-down. I've liked BenCousins'stuff in the past - while often minimal, those elements present have always been very polished, having a trip-hoppish, authentic quality to them. This is on another level, though. Howso? Well, BC's gotten himself a hold of a vocal-only track from Metal Gear Solid 2 and created an amazing, complete song around it, in true Portishead fashion. And when I say Portishead, I mean Portishead - if you've heard their stuff, especially "Roads" from Dummy, you should hear some definite similarities in style and execution. Which is absolutely brilliant to me, as they're a great band that virtually defined what trip-hop is with their debut album, are fairly hard to emulate at this level, and their style works absolutely, drop-dead gorgeously with the original vocal. With tremolo electric piano chords opening us up on top of some scrapy electrical synth fx, a heavily compressed, slow drum beat enters, followed by a spliced-to-match version of the original vocal that breaks away from the drums and brings in stellar piano and strings, then segues back in with the same beat. There's also distant, vibrato-heavy B3 organ - all of these, if you're not familiar with them, are staple Portishead foods, and they're used so damn immaculately that this not only sounds like it could be on a Portishead album, but that it would easily be the single. And dammit, they're one of my favorite bands, so that's one of the biggest compliments I can dole out. The follow segment with dueling vocal riffs on either side of the stereo field is to die for. Then there's some drum breaks beneath the original vocal, and things end with a perfecto reveal on the repeating mutated vocal-type lead. You may not dig the genre, but brothers and sisters, this is some fine, fine work. If you like this and by some chance haven't heard Dummy, it's a safe bet you'll dig that too. BenCousins has created an OC ReMix masterpiece and a trip-hop masterpiece in one fell swoop. Highly recommended, not to be missed.

― djpretzel