ReMix: Castlevania 'Vampire Snap'

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Castlevania

Happy Halloween!

OverClocked ReMix & Joshua Morse are proud to present Castlevania: Sonata of the Damned, a seven-track album of Castlevania mixes he put togther that we're releasing as a special Halloween surprise! I know we just released Humans + Gears, and it's odd to see our 16th album coming so soon afterwards, but jm's been working on this for months and today just seemed like the perfect day to spring it on everyone! While it's technically far funkier than it is spooky, the vampiric source material and infectious grooves are sure to get your Halloween thumpin' and bumpin' in a gothic, whip-smackin', toe-tappin' manner. Mr. Morse writes:

"From Kinuyo Yamashita to Michiru Yamane, the composers of this series have done a spectacular job in conveying the demonic atmosphere that Dracula and his minions convey, and I can only hope that I've done their work justice with my own."

Grab the torrent and get your CV on, ASAP! We've got three mixes from the album for you tonight, which represents almost half of the whole thing, but they're all classic jm-quality grooves. Plus, we're posting them in chronological game release order... easy as 1, 2, 3... and starting things off with this arrangement of 'Vampire Killer' from the original NES classic. The artist again writes:

"I actually had an initial version of this arrangement ready to go for my previous Halloween project, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night - Resurrection</shameless-plug>. However, posu yan busted out the gates with 'garlic', which completely blew me away (in every sense of the phrase). I felt as if 2 vampire killer tracks on a single collection might have been overkill, so I saved it for such an occasion."

I did a final run-through of the album files this morning and noticed some distortion due to the large amount of upper frequencies & overtones in the bell pad intro, and there was a moment of panic, but Joshua actually managed to get the track remastered in time for us to still manage a Halloween release, so that rocked. And so does the mix itself... a rubbery, watery, funky groove, complete with retro disco strings, requisite organ bits, jamtastic harpsichord, and... synth brass? If the Belmont family gate-crashed Dracula's party at Studio 54, this is what it'd sound like. Breaks and transitions here are quite playful, and the artist strays from a cleaner sound into using some grittier, period textures. There's of course a plethora of tasty solos, varied instrumentation, and oodles of syncopation. Hell, just check the temporary transition into - and promptly out of - a military/colonial snare cadence, circa 3'05" - great stuff. Joshua Morse + Castlevania + Halloween 2009 = Castlevania: Sonata of the Damned!

― djpretzel

Discussion: Latest 13 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
This is my favorite from the album as well. Not a huge surprise I guess since it's "THE" Castlevania theme if there ever was one, but this is really great. It sets the stage for the album as a whole style wise, and it's just so... smooth.
It's also nice to know that a song that's been mixed so many times can still sound original, jazzy mixes always seem to be my favorite and this, along with rest of the album is really no exception. Very upbeat, yet that "uptemponess" never detracts from the smoothness this track has going on.
On a somewhat bizarre note,. the ending portion of this song reminds me uncannily of LL Cool J's "Phenomenon" to the point where I have started to say the lyrics of that song over it. Random, but hilarious.

- ZealPath on November 15, 2009
Toe-tapping good. Kudos.

- Pachi Risu on November 14, 2009
This is my favorite on the album. It is so enjoyable to listen to and the intro is great.

- metalsnakejuice on November 6, 2009
JM, I have long been a fan of your work and this does not disappoint :) . It is a very fresh take on a theme that has had its fair share of mixes. Nicely done! I really like the build up in the intro, it really sets the mood for the rest of the remix.

- jintoreedwine on November 5, 2009
Get funky! I like how a lot of the phrases were extended so the different sections had more of a chance to breathe- we've all heard vampire killer a million times, but extending the parts gives everyone a chance to fully appreciate the arrangement. Good stuff, nice solos, and overall a pretty good track. :-)

- OA on November 4, 2009
One thing is for sure - JM doesn't disappoint much with his music. Great & unique take on the original - it's upbeat and rolling, and quite jazzy, which is something you don't see really when it comes to Castlevania, much less something that preserves some measure of uptempo.

- Bahamut on November 4, 2009
I'm glad that I'm not hearing an over-used whip-crack throughout this song. Something made me fear that was going to happen (a few too many times through Juese Belmont, I think), but it's obvious that I had no need to think such evil things like that could happen.
JM does some awesome work with jazz, and it's quite obvious here. I think I could almost cut and paste my last review here, change a couple sentences, and I'd be good to go. Fantastic soundscape going on, unique and funky. Transistions are smooth and seamless. Just hard not to tap my foot to this stuff. I'm a little dissapointed in the fade-out though. Not sure how to get a good ending, however, so I'm not very helpful. Otherwise, great job.

- DragonAvenger on November 2, 2009
I will admit that garlic was pretty kickass, and definately deserved the spot on the other album, but this is a fantastic piece of music. Keep up the awesome work jm!

- MaxFrost on November 1, 2009
This is one great track that has amazing written all over it.

- yosefu on November 1, 2009
I saw this on Youtube, in my subscription box today. Really cool remix, 5/5 indeed.

- Swordfyre on November 1, 2009
Now that makes for a happy Halloween!

- duskvstweak on October 31, 2009
I'm sorry to post before listening the remix but...I'm really amazed! I came here to look if OCR would give us a little halloween surprise, but I didn't expect an album! :O

- Dunther on October 31, 2009
What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

- djpretzel on October 31, 2009

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