ReMix: Super Mario Bros. 'Mario Likes Thorazine'

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So, I'm back from Aruba... rested, relaxed, somewhat tan. Had a blast: good food, great weather, beautiful place. At one point on the plane ride back Anna was playing New Super Mario Bros. on my DS and I was rockin' some PSP Ridge Racer. I've had the DS awhile but the PSP is a recent acquisition, and I'm definitely loving it; Nintendo obviously has a much larger market share, software library, and the innovation of the whole two-screen/touchscreen angle, but the PSP has some games that truly make you forget you're playing a handheld at all in terms of production values. Different systems, different appeal - fanboys will be fanboys, but I like them both. Speaking of New Super Mario Bros., Shnabubula's here with a brilliant string arrangement of... Old Super Mario Bros. Apparently Mario is fond of antipsychotic pharmaceuticals; Sam offered little to explain the mix title in his very brief submission email and has been rather scarce lately... I wish him the best, as I know he's been having some personal issues. Obviously, this is one of the most well known themes in video game music, so it's fascinating to see what an unconventional arranger like Sam does with it. The chamber music feel is definitely going strong, with beautiful attention to articulation and also very discrete panning to keep the individual "players" separate. I honestly can't tell 100% if these strings are real or not as of my writing this; if they're real, the recording is amazingly isolated and pristine. If they're fake, which I'm leaning towards, then I'm really interested in how the variety of traditionally tricky articulations has been handled so gracefully. Sam's never had lackluster samples, but this would represent a new echelon for him. Regardless of the timbral etymology, what matters is that they sound great. The arrangement, furthermore, plays to the strength and malleability of the instrument. The piece is generally more accessible than much of Sam's oeuvre, but due to the limited, real-world instrumentation as opposed to any lack of complexity in the base composition. Perhaps the thorazine in the title alludes to the mix segueing between lighthearted and serious tones, which is handled effortlessly and seems not schizophrenic but simply varied. This is a quintessential example of the complexity that can be applied even to relatively simple and well-known source material; it should serve as an excellent and approachable example, due to the maturity and source notoriety, of the limits to which game music arrangement can be taken with a more formal approach in mind. Here's hoping Sam's doing okay; his talent continues to shine even in his online scarcity, and this mix should win him even more admirers.

― djpretzel