ReMix: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse 'A Clockwork Vampire'
Dhsu confides:
"A small confession: I've never watched the Kubrick film (or played the Saturn game, if that's what you were thinking). Still, I thought it was a fitting title, so I went with it.
If just to hear the amazing electronic Beethoven arrangements by Wendy Carlos (and originals as well) and witness one of the better adapted screenplays (highly interpretive and additive, and also by Kubrick from the Burgess novel) in existence, the film is worth seeing. The ReMixer continues:
"As usual, I didn't take a whole lot of liberties melody-wise (I like to mess with chords progressions and tempo/rhythm instead), although there's a little nod to the Circle of the Moon rendition at around the 0:45 mark. The production was 100% GrayLightning's work. He rendered my recording to MP3 and did all the mastering and post-production work. A very big thanks to him, as this submission wouldn't have been possible without him."
Sometimes people hear a verbatim melody and they mistakenly conclude that the arrangement is minimal, or even a cover, but much can be done under the melodic hood to change the context and feel entirely, without altering a single note of the theme itself. From the beginning, Dhsu's work displays the dynamics and fluctuating tempo a good solo pianist can and should bring to the table, as a strong, moving left hand underpins the very classical, often chromatic melody line. At under three minutes, this is a rather short piece, but from the more flowing, impressionistic intro to the frantic, impressario passages beginning at 1'35", and then to the forte Vampire Killer cameo towards the end, there's a good variety, esp. in terms of tone and pacing. The latter reference to Killer has some minor nits which you may or may not notice. Dhsu explains:
"Also, the arrangement was originally just Clockwork, so I used the extra time to extend the arrangement to include the obligatory Vampire Killer (I forgot about Bloody Tears) and re-recorded it. 90% from memory, 100% by ear. 0% sped up or edited in any way (that's why there are mistakes near the end)."
I especially like the pick-up at 2'15" into a softer, quicker, brighter rendition of what I suppose could be considered the "verse" of that particular source track. Fun and fast, Dhsu's latest (since June of last year!) shows that he can still play like the business, and that he can arrange almost anything to seem like it was virtually born for solo piano performance.
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