ReMix: Pilotwings 'Fly'
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- Game: Pilotwings (Nintendo, 1990, SNES)
- ReMixer(s): Palpable
- Composer(s): Koji Kondo, Soyo Oka
- Song(s): 'Flight Club'
- Posted: 2009-08-22, evaluated by djpretzel
Vinnie and Amy, collectively known as Flickerfall, just released their debut album, Delayed Reaction, also available for digital download over at Protagonist Records. Price is reasonable and I *have* found myself humming one of these tracks ever since they first played it for me driving around somewhere in NoVa, where we both reside. Be sure to check that out, but first check this out - Vinnie's provided us with what is somehow, after almost ten years, our FIRST ReMix of the original Pilotwings for SNES! I played this game a ton back in the day... it was a really Zen way to decompress from work, school, or what have you by just flying around, or intentionally crashing my poor plummeting parachutist into the ground. It put Mode 7 to good use as more than just a gimmick, and really did have some solid gameplay; it's one of those games that tried something a bit different, and made it work, and this was before fancy-shmancy motion controllers and all that jazz. Palpable writes:
"JJT was thinking about a Pilotwings project last year and he asked me if I was interested. He had an idea for a jazzy drum & bass arrangement of Flight Club. It must have been a good concept, because I was coincidentally working on a jazzy drum & bass version of Flight Club before he asked me! But the Pilotwings project didn't end up happening so I decided to sub this.
Flight Club always seemed like a song without a melody, so I added one. There's only so much you can do with a 12 second song though, so in the bridge, I threw in the first second of the Opening, slowed down like 4x. Hopefully 13 seconds adds up to a ReMix."
While I like the minimalist "Fly," I still think "You Do Not Talk About Flight Club" would have a been a fun, if supremely obvious and ham-handed, mix title. Funny how things work out - I myself was already "working" (meaning "allowing to stagnate after completing a minute") on 'Short Skirts' when Andy approached me about VotL. In this instance, while the album never came out, we do at least have Palp's mix to listen to, which is great. There's all of the attention to detail, all of the varied, concise, short-release instrumentation, and all of the style, but this mix is a bit jazzier and a bit drum & bassier than what you're used to from Vinnie. It's also pretty clever and interpretive, arrangement-wise, as you might glean from the artist's comments, and packs a lot of material and development into 4'11". The blend of acoustic and electric piano, guitar, and strings along with pristine, meticulous synths at high (temporal) velocity is slick, but the real show-stealer is the abundance of syncopated breaks and fills. At 2'10" things almost go reggae, with a strong offbeat chord and half-time drum groove that lasts a good while. Things pick back up at 3'07" with a cool percolating synthpeggio lick, eventually leading to the reductionist ending and final piano chords. Nice way to tackle the Pilotwings score, and another clean, detail-oriented electronica mix (more or less) from Vinnie. Grab it & enjoy, then check out Flickerfall.
Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the - TBsmasher on April 19, 2013
At first I was really off-put by this song, but looking back I can't remember why, it's actually very enjoyable :-) Also, kudos on finding such a laid-back use for a D&B drumloop, that's good work! :-D
- Emunator on December 21, 2009
- metalsnakejuice on September 24, 2009
Highly recommended, this is my jam for today!
- OA on September 23, 2009
Awesome track, and if you haven't checked out the OSTs from the games I mentioned above, you should do so ASAP.
- Martin Penwald on September 14, 2009
"ZealPath" wrote: I should probably just download everything
Abso-spankin'-lutely.
- Nobbynob Littlun on August 27, 2009
Normally I like to comment on how a mix compares to the original, this time I'm just going to have to say I really enjoy this track. Very upbeat, a little more jazzy than I might have expected from a "flying theme" but it certainly goes down smoothly. The variations with the piano and synth are really awesome, this won't be leaving my regular playlist for a while.
Time to check out the rest of the Pilotwings soundttrack...
- ZealPath on August 23, 2009
Dave Harris;582826 wrote: stylistlcally it's verrrrry similar to "[URL="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmI3x79qhBc"]THE CUBE[/URL]" by DJ SUWAMI, an equally awesome tune - in fact the similarities are so rife that I'd be surprised if you hadn't heard this track before.
Great ears - I was indeed inspired by the style of that very track, which has been one of my favorite Bemani tracks for years. Probably should have mentioned that in my submission e-mail if you think it's that similar, but I suspect if someone is mixing D&B and jazz, they'll probably end up using a lot of the same instruments.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone!
- Palpable on August 23, 2009
I guess the only case I'd have against your arrangement is the sparsity of the original material; you've almost made an entirely new track, since you're essentially taking those chord voicings and building around them. I'm guilty of doing exactly the same thing with F-Zero's rankings/select time music too though. gulp
my favourite thing on OCR for probably a few years, nonetheless :)
- Dave Harris on August 23, 2009
- Ascendancy on August 22, 2009
ps - i will be peeping your album as jade checks it out, looking forward to it. Also thanks for the comments on golbez! glad you like path of deception <33 gotta submit that one hehe
great works!
- bLiNd on August 22, 2009
And what's also amazing is I got the Flickerfall album in today on top of all this. It's just a lot of Palpable goodness! :D Thanks for sending the album so quickly.
- JaDE ARaN HaRuNo on August 22, 2009
Why did it take so long? Palpable, your my hero.
This is also now my favorite remix of yours.
- metaphist on August 22, 2009
I was confused when reading the write-up. It took me a couple of times before I finally read [b]Flight[/b] Club rather than it sans "l".
Great mix!
- LuckyXIII on August 22, 2009
But here I go!!! Uplifting... Energetic... Flat out smooth... The sound track is so good your ear would have an orgy.
A+ must listen all the way begining to the end!!!!
- ChaosPlayer on August 22, 2009
