ReMix: Zombies Ate My Neighbors 'The Curse'

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Last but not least, with very little time to go here on the East coast, we have our fourth mix of the day, making it "four for the fourth" - an excellent marketing gimmick, were we actually trying to sell anything. I don't really think of OCR as a particularly "American" website - one of the best aspects of running it over the years has been getting to know people from all over the world, and seeing them come together for a common purpose. I'd actually like to work on opening things up more, whether that involves translations of site content into other languages, etc. Nevertheless, myself and many of the judges are American, and from the limited stats I get, I'd guesstimate 60-70% of the site's visitors are as well. So, for the remaining 30-40%, thanks for bearing with us during our day of patriotic zeal and non-sensical explodifying of multicolored doodads; we mean well.

Mr. Pacaud sends in a mix that isn't really as polished as his previous efforts; this is ostensibly an intentional decision on his part, but that doesn't mean the judges can't critique it along those lines. I didn't find the production overly problematic because, while it was unpolished, the performances themselves were organic and quite musical, but it's definitely going to be a subjective thing that hits certain people one way and others another. It's sort of like... garage rock meets Castlevania, for lack of a better simile. If you want metrically immaculate, pristine, and tightly sequenced ZAMN coverage, Protricity's been there and done that, but that doesn't mean the game's score doesn't leave room for alternate interpretations, like any good text should. Cpac got rhythm, lead, and wah guitar, acoustic kit drums, pipe organ, harpsichord, and electric bass going on. I actually think I would have preferred the mix steered away from the heavier side of things, went for slightly cleaner production, and aimed for the Steely Dan feel that 2'54" evokes, but it's still cool that the ReMixer can blend in jazzier compositional elements into a rock piece as such. Jesse writes:

"the bass could afford to be more pounding in my opinion. from a creative perspective, this isnt really my cup of tea. However it's very solidly composed. Plenty of ideas expressed, good performance. The track is quite creative, lots of liberties that work out quite well. In my opinion this is very solid material, and well above the bar."

So, I guess my take would be that this isn't Cpac's slickest or most cohesive mix, but it still displays most of the traits that make him one of the most exciting mixers on the scene, being a willingness to try riskier arrangement ideas coupled with heapin' helpings of live instrumentation, and is definitely worth your time. Happy 4th of July!

― djpretzel