ReMix: Armored Core: Formula Front - Extreme Battle 'We Can See No.373'
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- Game: Armored Core: Formula Front - Extreme Battle (Agetec, 2004, PSP)
- ReMixer(s): Jillian Aversa, Mattias Häggström Gerdt
- Composer(s): Ayako Minami, Daisuke Matsumoto (II), Hideyuki Eto, Tsukasa Saito
- Song(s): 'I Can See All', 'iśaku-No.373'
- Posted: 2011-01-10, evaluated by djpretzel
- Album: Featured on THE ANSWER - Armored Core Tribute Album -
No, not THAT answer, or that other one, or even him... today at least we're focusing on THIS one. While the answer to life, the universe, and everything may be 42, Mattias Häggström Gerdt has today answered the specific question of "What would a badass album of Armored Core ReMixes made by Mattias Häggström Gerdt sound like?," and I dare say he was the perfect man for the job.
This is our FIRST PSP ReMix (!!), an accomplishment I really wanted all to myself, but you snooze, you lose, and I snost, and I lost. Fair play to the Swede, who writes:
"'Hyper Monkey Likes the Dancefloor' worked really well so I decided to do something a bit similar to keep the album cohesive but not so similar that it felt dull. Out of the blue, Jill stepped up to do her second vocal performance for THE ANSWER, something I wasn't expecting but accepted with open arms! Considering Larry was originally planned to appear on this track, I think I (and everyone else) was very lucky that Jill came on to lend her voice talent.
Once again I had almost too much fun fiddling around with the vocal stems I got. With a little help from Propellerhead Record's Neptune (I know, I mention this a lot, but it's awesome) I decided to give poor Jill a certain Vocaloid character. Maybe I'm a crowd pleaser since this album was aimed for release in Japan but there's also something about the sound I find very pleasing. Some pitching, formant shifting, distortion, compression, EQ, filtering, reverb, delay and harmonies later I had completely transformed Jill into a crazy robot. Luckily she was somewhat okay with this! Or at least after I changed the original settings which made her sound like she was around 10 years old, something that was probably for the better. I went on to slap some bass, play some keys and side-chain some synths and PRESTO, REMIX! I hope you enjoy this track as much as I do!"
SERIOUSLY funky; Mattias really blended a lot of funk/disco into these tracks, and the bass that intros the mix alone is a thick, delicious chunk of funk that sets the stage for the cosmic, bootalicious breakdown that ensues. This is probably my favorite track off the album, because it's a got a power-chorus with a strong pop melodic hook that breaks up the straight groove bits with some anthemic robo-Jill refrains. Mattias almost sounds apologetic about the vocal FX, which I suppose some might feel are trite or overused at this juncture in musical history, but I've always maintained that you should do what's right for the song, ignore the peanut gallery, etc., and I think the overall package here is a sweet bundle of space disco that holds nothing back. Awesome, completely enjoyable gem off of THE ANSWER!
Discussion: Latest 11 comments/reviews; view the That bassline seriously makes the song for me, and everything else is icing on the cake. Solid song from Mattias - hell, the whole ANSWER album is probably underappreciated, it's good stuff.
- Bahamut on July 15, 2012
- Crulex on December 16, 2011
Well, it may be something since both he and Jillian represented OCR at Tokyo earlier this year, but that to me would take Larry's humorous side to a whole new level. :razz:
Of course, it's fine enough with Jillian involved given a familiarity with the Japanese audience beyond the TGS2011 booth babes (I'm sorry again Larry!!), and as a result we've managed to get a track that can be seen as a melodic fusion of the two sources while depending on the silly yet repetitive lyrics of "I Can See All" in a neatly programmed vocal stem that can be compared to Daft Punk's vocoder work. I swear that thing is [i]crazy[/i] - with all the major pitch shifts, autotuning and the occasional half-speed thrown in, the idea of turning Jill into a vocaloid for this purpose has shown itself to be a clever and well-executed idea.
So you can see I dig the idea well. People may not get it due to the restrictive lyrical nature, but that's what the source material implied. I'm just blown away by a lot of the production work especially behind the transformation behind Jill's voice, so I consider it a very neat addition to the Armored Core album - plus a neat way to provide first honors to the PSP! Nice work, Anosou :)
- Rexy on December 15, 2011
Jill sounds great as a crazy dance robot, and the track is super funkified, which is a wonderful treat for all. This is a good song, you should download it.
- OA on December 12, 2011
I'd say the over-excessive application of a single sentence probably did it in for me. This song does need vocals to spice it up yes... Trying 3 or 5 different sentences probably would have sounded better, as the repetition tends to get on the annoying side after a while.
- Crono3of3time on January 31, 2011
The perfect bass sound makes me dance.
The voice effects introduce -surprisingly??- a lot of emotion.
Thanks for that.
- Coucou on January 21, 2011
- Rozovian on January 12, 2011
- Joshua Morse on January 10, 2011
- NegimaSonic on January 10, 2011
