ReMix: Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty 'Big Shell West Bristol'

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This is fantastic, a great addition to OC ReMix, and one of my personal favorite ReMixes hands-down. I've liked BenCousins'stuff in the past - while often minimal, those elements present have always been very polished, having a trip-hoppish, authentic quality to them. This is on another level, though. Howso? Well, BC's gotten himself a hold of a vocal-only track from Metal Gear Solid 2 and created an amazing, complete song around it, in true Portishead fashion. And when I say Portishead, I mean Portishead - if you've heard their stuff, especially "Roads" from Dummy, you should hear some definite similarities in style and execution. Which is absolutely brilliant to me, as they're a great band that virtually defined what trip-hop is with their debut album, are fairly hard to emulate at this level, and their style works absolutely, drop-dead gorgeously with the original vocal. With tremolo electric piano chords opening us up on top of some scrapy electrical synth fx, a heavily compressed, slow drum beat enters, followed by a spliced-to-match version of the original vocal that breaks away from the drums and brings in stellar piano and strings, then segues back in with the same beat. There's also distant, vibrato-heavy B3 organ - all of these, if you're not familiar with them, are staple Portishead foods, and they're used so damn immaculately that this not only sounds like it could be on a Portishead album, but that it would easily be the single. And dammit, they're one of my favorite bands, so that's one of the biggest compliments I can dole out. The follow segment with dueling vocal riffs on either side of the stereo field is to die for. Then there's some drum breaks beneath the original vocal, and things end with a perfecto reveal on the repeating mutated vocal-type lead. You may not dig the genre, but brothers and sisters, this is some fine, fine work. If you like this and by some chance haven't heard Dummy, it's a safe bet you'll dig that too. BenCousins has created an OC ReMix masterpiece and a trip-hop masterpiece in one fell swoop. Highly recommended, not to be missed.

― djpretzel

Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
Makes me wonder if I'm filled with love or if I'm just hurt and pain. Non-clever referencing aside, I really love this song. I remember listening to it over and over and over again when I lived in Hawaii and worked the late shift with nothing else to do.

- MechaFone on December 20, 2010
Pretty cool, I like the chords and atmosphere, cool effects and the beat works too. I am ambivalent about the prominent sampling from the game soundtrack itself, as I don't think that'd really fly these days, but It really does work.

- OA on August 16, 2010
I'm bloody upset this is one of the first mixes I ever got from this site years ago because I can't see how anyone can top it. I'm very happy to see bencousins are still checking the reviews because I think this track needs to be put up against some of the WORLD'S BEST video game tracks and not only can it hold it's own, I still truly believe this tops them. I've played it for people who swore it was a commercial song. Hell, *I* still have to remind myself it's not. Take pride in this masterpiece, Bencousins....take pride.
An absolutely SMASHING song

- dashafiyah on October 28, 2008
Holy shit i'm an idiot...how do you actually download this remix?

- phatzilla on July 25, 2008
The writeup of this mix made me discover Portishead which I am very grateful for.
And the mix itself is pretty freaking sexy too.

- Jaybell on July 24, 2008
It's been a while since I've listened to this. It's still gold :D

- Solanalos on September 21, 2006
Enjoying this mix you say Ben? Enjoying it? Dude, I start most days listening to this genius.
Many thanks for this fantastic tune.

- mecca on August 15, 2006
It survived!
What I mean to say is I still love this song.

- watkinzez on August 6, 2006
Nice to know you guys are still enjoying this mix!

- Ben Cousins on June 2, 2006
I don't think it's really even being contested. Taking a rip and adding your own stuff under it is just not what this site is about any moreso than the Black Lodge remix is. Basically this was one of our criteria when considering mixes; if you took out all the directly sampled material, what would you be left with? In this case, basically nothing.

- zircon on April 26, 2006
well, i really don't think the complexity is in question (as zircon meant to say overreliance on sampling). As many have pointed out, the backing music that BC did add does follow the chord structure/melody of the original, albeit moving it from a jazz piece to triphop instrumentation. The arrangement of the original [i]is [/i]there - which is impressive given that BC was working with a clip of the song and not the actual song.
The issue at hand is the direct sampling of the source. In this case, I feel that the genre adaption/processing on the vocals does help a lot. I mean, it's not like he ripped the track and pasted it over his mix. He built a new song around it - while still keeping to the progression of the original - in a completely different style. In my opinion, this song fits under OCR's guidelines moreso than the other song on OCR to do this - Jared Hudson's FFX remix, which was contested during the last lockdown and ended up being kept on the site. Going back and rereading all the lockdown decisions on that song, I can pretty much apply everything said to this track.

- Navi on April 26, 2006
Disco Dan wrote:
The hardest part of the mix was working out the chord sequence to underpin the vocals, I'm not sure its the same as the original track. Took me a couple of evenings looping the vocals and trying to finds the right chords. I'm a drummer first, and a very poor keyboard player so that was hard.

Indeed. That's the part I'm most impressed with. You took a totally acapella solo voice piece and added a chord progression and listenable rhythm. Very impressive considering how little there was to work with in the original. Actually, come to think of it, the original is really dry and boring (though I guess it's part of the atmosphere) and I can actually listen to this one. Just never was a fan of solo vocal music.
As for the choppiness and cutting of the vocals/sounds, that's part of the genre. If you don't like it, you wouldn't like the genre. Good stuff.
D

zircon: is this track really as simple as you insist. One of the toughest judges ever suggested otherwise.

- PassivePretentiousness on April 24, 2006
BVWB

- GrayLightning on April 4, 2006
Yes, I have the MGS2 soundtrack. I suppose I should have said "too much reliance on direct sampling".

- zircon on April 3, 2006
err, it's not a direct rip at all. have you listened to the original?
i can understand complaints with reliance on the vocal sample, but to say it's a direct rip is really pushing it.

- Navi on April 3, 2006