ReMix: EarthBound 'Brainshock'

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I'm writing this after coming home from this year's MAGFest, which has been an amazing opportunity to meet many members of the game arrangement community face-to-face whom heretofore I knew only by pseudonym. Caught amazing performances by Arm Cannon and Powerglove, an inspired-if-belated set from Shael, and, yes, even had a beer with Mustin and Mr. Kaufman. I'm actually in a bit of a rush to head back and catch Wave Theory, but I wanted to post something during MAGFest to commemorate OCR's first "official" attendance/participation.

Continuing in the now downright spooky trend of ReMixers from days of yore returning to mix again comes aluminum, with a kickin' Earthbound mix. The lightweight metal frequently used in aircraft writes:

"Well, it's certainly been a while since I last submitted anything (way back in 07/2004). In order to get back into practice, I thought I'd finish off this Earthbound mix I had started some time ago before being sidetracked by a few hardware failures and a certain MMO which shall not be named. The most time probably went into some of the details, like the sequencing on the hi-hat line near the end, which I'm pretty happy about. Stylistically, it's pretty much all over the place (as usual)."

How many WIPs has WoW laid creative devastation to with its apparently nicotine-trumping level of addiction? The world shall never know. Fortunately, this ain't one of them, and you get some excellent, ethereal-yet-funky electronica to brighten up your weekend. This really is all over the place, but so is Suzuki as a composer, so it's fitting. You've got assorted electronic percussion mixed with acoustic percussion, acoustic and electric piano, ambient new age synths, mellow sections, groovy sections, funky sections, and more. While there's great instrumental and even stylistic variation, none of it seems pasted in or incongruous. Andy writes:

"Wow, some really neat sound design things going on in this mix. I liked aluminum's other stuff and it seems to me that he has only improved. Neat rhythmic gating and stuttering effects, nice non-traditional pads, what sounds like vocoding or formant filtering... man, just props all around on the creative production end. Goes without saying that the arrangement is strong too. I don't think it's liberal at all. The chord progression primarily locks it in, comparing the two side by side I don't think anyone would have trouble figuring it out. Certainly once the melody is showed off, it's not hard. E.Piano is a little harsh but hey, RHODES baby, RHODES!!!"

I was always a WURLITZER!!! man myself, but when it's as gritty and warm and articulate as it is here, the model and make are tertiary in importance. I agree with zircon that this is aluminum's best mix yet; it's very accessible while not being orthodox in the slightest, which is a tricky balance, and it's got an equally tuned balance of soloing to groove passages. It doesn't hurt that the production, while loud, is rock solid. Great stuff; here's hoping aluminum stays in the game and gives us more like it, and here's hoping MAGFest stays in Northern Virginia so I can see more of y'all out here next year.

― djpretzel