ReMix: Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee 'The Monsaic'

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New month, new mix, new game, as TO gives us our first ReMix from the peculiar Oddworld universe. Before I go further, a non-sequitir nod to William Shatner - I just now heard his cover of Pulp's 'Common People', with Ben Folds at the helm, and that shit just flat out rocks. My late summer anthem, to be sure. Mr. Barber writes:

"I wanted to bring out the more atmospheric and tribal essence of Oddworld that Meijers seemed to really dig. I feel the way I've remixed this is similar to the music from one of the later oddworld games (Stranger's Wrath) which made good use of acoustic guitar and woodwind instruments. I've used a flute, pan flute, acoustic guitar, orchestral strings, hollywood strings, and bass as well as acoustic drums from RMX and a tribal drums soundfont for the percussion."

Going off rather minimal, short source material, TO's expanded things quite a bit, with a neo-Western feel (Yul Brynner in... Westworld), complete with ambient wind effects, a good, bad, + ugly-style flute, and deliberate acoustic guitar. It's a bit more melodic than TO's stuff, and vaguely reminds me of Simon and Garfunkel's 'El Condor Pasa' (If I Could) at times. GrayLightning writes:

"Taking a very short source material and expanding it like this was quite clever and it works. I'm not sure if TO intentionally mixed this for electro-new age, but it is apparent he knows the genre well. This sounds like a great Enigma piece. It does what it's supposed to without fuss and without fail. Arrangement is top notch, as is the composition. It's incredibly hard to sequence for guitar and an admirable job was done here. What makes this mix for me though is the great rhythm complimenting the atmosphere. There's a lot of electro-drum/percussion along with native american rhythms and percussion that really add to the piece. The woodwind works to compliment this especially well also. Woodwind bends also add a nice series of articulation to the mix."

Not sure about the Enigma likeness, but perhaps I just haven't heard enough beyond the gratuitous Sadeness and Return to Innocence to call it; certainly, though, the woodwind pitch bends are clutch and are eventually what seal the Western vibe - having played only this title from the collection of Oddworld games, I can see how this arrangement might resemble some of the newer material, as there's a definitely a Western vibe going on in Stranger's Wrath, for example. It's good to see the rather creative series of games that stemmed from the original, Flashback/Out of this World style 2D title get some coverage here, and TO's M.O. works nicely with the atmospheric nature of the material. Good stuff - moody, but in an enveloping, enjoyable, non-emo way.

― djpretzel