ReMix: Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole 'Rare Mineral Addict'
- Game: Landstalker: The Treasures of King Nole (Sega, 1993, GEN)
- ReMixer(s): Shnabubula
- Composer(s): Motoaki Takenouchi
- Song(s): 'Mysterious Island'
- Posted: 2005-07-21, evaluated by the judges
Landstalker finally graces us with its isometric greatness, courtesy of resident panel eccentric extraordinaire, Samuel Ascher-Weiss, perhaps better known as Shnabubula. Again utilizing an unorthodox style that juxtaposes disparate, sometimes even sub-par samples with more elegant, intricate textures, and featuring very tight, quickly adaptive sequencing, Sam's come up with something that's just... different. Listen to a single, small excerpt of it and you might tend to be dismissive, but taken as a whole, structures like this breathe with equal parts creativity and schizophrenia. Brandon offers:
"The bass-play at 0:57-1:20 is chilled magic. Throughout the track the bass is alive with variation and it’s wonderful to follow it as it takes the lead, then morphs into almost a supporting pad then is reborn with a the cleanest of funky slap styles. It meshes well with the seemingly endless array of other sounds that laugh in the face of repetition. One would think that with this many elements present clutter would be inevitable but the hard panning, distinctive EQ on each instrument, sparse reverb and variety of textures keeps the entirety of this mix as clear as a bell…a clear bell anyway…not a busted bell or something."
You've got filtered wah synth zaniness with JAZZ FLUTE, more heavily verbed 70's style synth lead, a slap bass that seems to duet with itself, bass panned right and upper-octave harmonized melody on the left... and that's just the first minute and a half. Sam just has weird, crazy musical ideas that he somehow pulls off, there's no other way to put it, or at least nothing more eloquent yet concise comes to mind. Actually, Jesse did a better job:
"Sam is doing a great service to the community by serving up such unconventional yet entertaining tracks. He challenges listeners to think about music in new ways, using near chaos to hilight convergent harmony. Great stuff."
If you don't have the palate for Shna's stuff and have already come to that conclusion for yourself based on past precedent, this won't be a revelation or deal-breaker, but if like myself and Jesse you appreciate his... I'd almost call it audacity, but we'll say "strangeness"... and find that it challenges your notions of what's "allowed" in terms of both arrangement and instrumentation - even if that's at the cost of accessibility/danceability/comprehensibility sometimes - then I think you'll dig this. Landstalker certain deserves such an opus, as one of the few great hurrahs of the action RPG on the Genesis. Rare, addictive, and... mineral? Sure, why not.
I've played Landstalker a bit, and seen it played a bit more. I think the spirit in this track does the fun and unique game a great justice.
--Eino
- evktalo on December 27, 2011
What I look for in good music, specifically, is that it has a message, it doesn't bore me, it emotes, it puzzles, it involves, it progresses, it's original, it finishes making it's statement in a timely fashion without redundancy, and pleases all the way through. This is one of the few tracks that achieves and in fact exceeds in every category.
The only songs I have to compare it to AT ALL are Squarepusher's Boneville Occident and Aphex Twin's 54 Cymru Beats.
In the running for my personal top 10 songs of all time.
Thank you so much Sam.
- Less Ashamed Of Self on March 31, 2011
The playful ending is great. :-D
This is a lengthy mix with a somewhat steep learning curve, but if you take the time to really listen to it, there's a lot of great ideas here, and it gets better with each listen.
- OA on April 2, 2009
- underthesun on January 20, 2009
- Liontamer on December 4, 2008
8O
I R t3h f4m05!
- Royal Sovereign on December 21, 2005
Nice song btw Shnab. Or should I say, 5HN48U8U74 ROMG.
- RoeTaKa on December 20, 2005
...now I wonder what a Big Sky Troopers mix would sound like after it was passed through the Shnab Machine.
- Wicked on August 12, 2005
- Nobbynob Littlun on August 11, 2005
Royal Sovereign wrote: FINALLY [i]Landstalker[/i] gets a remix!! Took y'all long enough...
Afaik one more WIP from Usa is still in work. It's an piano-arrangement of "Treasure Hunter Lyle" (2nd Map Theme, Lyle's Theme). Currently it's just completed to 50% and it sounds really great.
And before I forget, the correct name of the Game is "Land Stalker". Anyone can read it in Romanji on the Soundtrack. ^^
- Zak on August 7, 2005
Royal Sovereign wrote:
For those that don't know, [b]it's the song that plays when the Island Map is displayed[/b].
I started playing because of this mix... and DANG IT you're right!
How does a source tune so beautifully arranged and orchestrated get a part in the OST that's so small while such an annoying repetitive track gets stuck on the dungeon theme.
- Less Ashamed Of Self on July 26, 2005
- synthetic_realities on July 25, 2005
- TrueMagoo on July 22, 2005
This one is a strange one, I'll admit. For those that don't know, [b]it's the song that plays when the Island Map is displayed[/b]. That being said, it's pretty faithful to the original, even if it is a bit crackheaded and occasionally dissonant in some parts.
Overall, a very well-done bit. I like. :D
- Royal Sovereign on July 22, 2005

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