ReMix: Doom II: Hell on Earth 'Red Waltz'
Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to present to you our eleventh album - Doom II: Delta-Q-Delta! This is Lee's baby, having worked over two years to bring together this collection of 13 tracks from 11 artists, each arranging composer Bobby Prince's score in their own various dark and demonic ways. The director writes:
"Delta-Q-Delta took over 2 and a half years to complete, facing many bumps and struggles along the way. I felt it was important not to rush a release of the project in order to ensure quality above all else. Finally we've reached a point where the album satisfied our critical eyes and ears, and the artists involved that have been waiting for so long can breathe a huge sigh of relief as their tracks are finally heard by many Doom 2 and video game music fans.
I'd personally like to thank everyone involved in the project during its making. Even those whose efforts didn't end up making it to the final version, your input was appreciated and helped shaped the album as it is today.
I hope you, the fans, the artists, the public in general will enjoy this album. Set yourself aside an hour. Turn the lights off, turn the volume up, and lose yourself in the dark and evil atmosphere that we've set up to hopefully provide you some nostalgia of that wonderful sequel title, Doom 2: Hell on Earth."
Awesome. Lee asked if I could contribute a track to this project WELL in advance, knowing the craziness of my schedule. Nevertheless, I ended up being the last mix completed, and I just finished working on website tonight - though most of the creativity and artwork really came from Jouni Lahtinen, who also did Mazedude's American Album. Speaking of Mazedude, he's on here... along with analoq, BGC, Ailsean, Evil Horde, and a bunch of other familiar faces that should be familiar. Like its predecessor, The Dark Side of Phobos, the vibe here is definitely dark and brooding, but there's a wider variety of genres represented this go around. Ambient/industrial/metal are dominant, and actually I tried to go that route myself, initially, but after months of working on a WIP, I threw everything out and started a d'n'b version of the track instead. Then 6 hours later I threw that out and started a Cafe Del Mar-ish arrangement... Finally, three hours after that, I started the version I ended up finishing. Needless to say, it was a long night, and it's been a long several months working on an arrangement I could actually FINISH.
... and it's a waltz. As you probably surmised from the title. I know that when most people think Doom (or Doom 2), their mind probably doesn't scream "waltz!," but that's all the more reason I was convinced I should move forward with the idea. And, while this is a shorter piece that's relatively unassuming, I'm pretty proud of the arrangement... it hinges on a solo cello that I spent a LOT of time tweaking articulations, vibrato and note lengths on. But the overall structure is an amalgam of recent influences; specifically, I got the idea to do a waltz from watching So You Think You Can Dance. Seriously. I know that even admitting I watch this show might draw wisecracks from a lot of people, but honestly, Anna got me into it, and I think it's great. It's more talent-oriented than American Idol, more challenging (YOU try getting mainstream America to swallow contemporary dance... or Foxtrot, for that matter!), and they pick some pretty damn cool music once in awhile. Mirah's 'The Garden'? On FOX? Suffice to say that, in my book, any network television show that's both successful and exposes people to a variety of both dance and music is okay in my book. Specifically, 'Dark Waltz' by Hayley Westenra really caught my ear, and I had the piece fresh in my mind when I decided to throw away previous iterations and go with a waltz myself. We also recently interviewed one-time VGM composer Patrick Zimmerli, and I really dig his contemporary work. Though this piece is far from contemporary, the additional of whips, castanets, and Bartok pizzicato towards the end are all part of the influence of listening to his music.
So, really, this piece is a product of my life, what I've been listening to, and influences from people around me, all of whom (especially Anna!) I thank. It's not what I started out thinking I'd do with the source material, but pieces rarely turn out the way you'd expect, and one of the great things about ReMixing in general is just seeing where the process takes you. Those of you into shreddage/industrial material need not worry - my mix is an anomaly for the project, and if you're hoping for heavier stuff, that's really the majority of the album. I've always felt that whatever classical lacks in sheer amplitude it can make up for with diabolical nuance and menacing grace, and that's exactly what I've shot for with this mix. Whether I've succeeded or not, I had a lot of fun. I hadn't done anything orchestral in ages, and while OCR has a lot of epic pieces in the genre, the smaller, more intimate forms like waltzes tend to be less common.
At any rate, I'm thrilled to have another mix for 2008, I feel like it's a good one that's unique to the album it was created for and OCR in general, and I feel like Lee's done a great jobs sticking with this project and seeing it through to conclusion. All of the artists who've contributed tracks have come up with some very dark, aggressive takes on the source material, and Doom fans should be very, very happy. There'll be more mixes to come, but for now head on over to http://doom2.ocremix.org for the complete album, or just grab the torrent and get seeding!
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