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OCR01405 - Solstice "Pegasus Boots"


djpretzel
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Crunk as a mofo.

I've always found myself liking Shna's "hard to appreciate/stomach" works, like this one, Hunter's Community Chest, Rare Mineral Addict, etc. I really can't explain why. Unlike Israfel, I'm not a wealth of music technical know (not trying to be sarcastic, btw), rather, I'm a listener, sometimes maker (I won't deny that Chauffage Au Gaz was influenced by Shna's work), who loves deviations from the norm.

Shna's "abstractions" never come off as messy or to me. Lo fi, almost always. Experimental, for sure. Confusing, sometimes. Requiring of many, many listens? Always. Each time I listen to a Shnamix, I find new things that I like about it, new sections that sound very cool, experiments with sound that stimulate.

Meh, maybe I'm a fanboy for this sort of stuff.

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Wow, what a mess. Way too many random ideas and conflicting instruments. The tossed-in beats were entirely too filtered for the rest of the atmosphere. And good lord too much high-end. I had a really hard time even finishing this one. The whole thing just really really didn't work for me.

Yikes... well... I wouldn't want to follow 'Dragon Song' either...

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I like this one a lot. All the stuff going on between the saxes starting around 1:30 is really interesting. There's definitely much going on here that a lot of people just plain won't hear or at least not hear on the first few listens. Even at the weakest points in between there's a certain kind of lo-fi cheesy appeal (starting around 2:18, for example) that makes it work. Of course it's occasionally frustrating as usual, but this one seems to have at least a bit of a different approach that is refreshing.

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This is a compositional tour de force, no doubt about it. Like many of his other works, Sam masterfully borrows from contemporary jazz and classical musics while at the same time demonstrating an ear for accessibility.

It's hearing the music of up-and-coming composers like Sam that persuaded me away from pursuing a career in music- there's just no way I can compete. :)

You rock, Sam, keep it up.

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This is a compositional tour de force, no doubt about it. Like many of his other works, Sam masterfully borrows from contemporary jazz and classical musics while at the same time demonstrating an ear for accessibility.

It's hearing the music of up-and-coming composers like Sam that persuaded me away from pursuing a career in music- there's just no way I can compete. :)

You rock, Sam, keep it up.

Well said. This is incredible. I don't even know the source tune, but I don't have to to realize that this is an amazing composition. Good job, Sam.

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interesting stuff in here...

And, in order to seem like a total ass, I'm going to waiv my right to say anything intelligent about this mix and just say this:

I prefer the original. It's flippin' Sexy-ass Good God Y'all, Edwyn Starr Style, Shiznackety awesome....and therefore, better than this... But I still love you Shnubby.

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I think this is one of the less-accessible tracks he's done personally. While there's not so much of the randomness and energy in this track as perhaps some of the other mixes on the site (some of the chaoticness in Hunter's Community Chest, for instance), I think it's the smooth and unnoticable transitions between the sections and general staticness of ideas (not so much musical progression as other mixes) throughout the whole track that might push peoples attention spans, especially when - as David has touched on - the ideas themselves are quite an acquired taste and tend to have a musical/theoretical leaning, rather than something that is written with the general audience in mind. Probably a hard one for people to grasp, here.

I first heard this all the way back in early June, and I wouldn't say it was my favourite mix of his, probably because LESS happens than I am accustomed to, rather than more :D, though I appreciate this mix a lot, and I certainly can listen to it and enjoy it. I'm feeling that it's Sam's most unique OCR to date, at least.

Much respect for keeping that enterprising creative voice at full throttle. Now to silently wait for the next one, whenever it comes around 8).

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This is exactly why I love Shnabalabulanabana's work. It's always amazing and always, in the words of burn out dirty hippies, "out there".

Shnabubula always manages to take interesting pieces and then translate then into something that I am never quite ready to listen to but am always ready to have. I must admit that I rarely string up all of his mixes and let them run. In fact I rarely ever pull just one of them up. But, like the copy of Incubus (starring William Shatner and filmed entirely in Esperanto) on my DVD shelf, I am always glad that I COULD listen to it.

With this piece in particular Shna manages to take an unwilling piece from my childhood and blow it up and turn it inside out.

Solstice ate my head when I was a child. It wasn't until Nintendo Power published the code for many, many little purple hats (back when the Classified Information section still looked like a manilla envelope (not to be confused with Manila, the city in the Phillipines)) that I was able to conquer the game.

You want to know how anyone can beat the game in under seven minutes? I want to know how to get more than seventy seven percent of the map. Find me a video of THAT and I WILL birth your children (even though China is keeping me from even birthing a healthy stool).

Bottom Line: I Heart This Mix. The theme returns to me from across the void of time and bites me in the ass. Reminding me both of my failure to conquer this game and of the dissonance that Shnabubula makes me adore to my core.

I'm a poet and I know it, my feet show it and they're Longfellows.

Nice work, as usual.

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LOL, The intro bells have me thinking "I want my babyback, babayback, babyback, Chiliiiiii's, babyback ribs" :D . Maybe it's just me.

I'm all over this lo-fi vibe. The distorted synths that sound as though they are struggling to hold themselves together, just so they can finish this last song, the mono drums that live in the background, and the delightfully dry feel of everything work so well in Sam's hands. Ahh, and the orchestra of saxes, fun fun fun.

Sam, your percussion sequencing really is amazing but somehow your mixes always show so much restraint there, not allowing the percussion to overtake the all-important melody unless absolutely necessary. Here, I'm not even able to beg for more drumwork simply because of the beautiful control that the saxes and synths exercise over both the rhythm and the melody.

Yada, yada, praise, praise. No surprise that this mix is more of your usual great stuff. Congrats on the DP man.

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Ya know, I don't know. There are parts of this song where I am reminded of this one Bjork song with saxaphones playing the same notes over and over. (I love the song, but I can't remember the name) Although, this goes way past that. I do like the drums and the low low geetar. Even if the saxaphones are all over the place, the beat is still pretty easy to follow, as well as the progression. I think my favorite part is 2:15-3:15 though. I don't know if I could listen to something like this on a regular basis, but if I'm ever feeling mellow yet chaotic/confused...yup.

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You want to know how anyone can beat the game in under seven minutes? I want to know how to get more than seventy seven percent of the map. Find me a video of THAT and I WILL birth your children (even though China is keeping me from even birthing a healthy stool).

Check http://speeddemosarchive.com/Solstice.html; it has a 100% room run in fifteen minutes.

Also, this remix kicks my face in. In a good way. The only complaint I have is that of the sax sound, but that's minor because the interplay is awesome enough to make me forget about it. And the synths are rad. If it weren't for the crippling nostalgia I have for The Guardian Legend, this might be my favorite Shna mix.

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I said it in Rare Mineral Addict and I'll say it here, Shna, I heart this mix.

It's actually kind of funny because I owned Solstice for the longest time. EVERY time I decided to play it, I'd pop it in and twenty minutes later I'd slam the controller down, yank the game out and scream "FUCK THIS GAME!"

However, as much as I hated the game, the music would stick in my head for hours. I love it. It sounds so different from all the other NES music out there. In fact, now that I have it, I wonder why it took so long for a remix from Solstice to come out. I'm glad there finally is one and ten times gladder that it's from Shna. Ace.

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I did a double-take when I saw this. Someone did a remix for the Solstice theme? Kick ass.

Actually, I was even more pleasantly surprised when I heard the remix, because it is outstanding. I am definitely liking this. I know some friends will get a kick out of it. Nice work.

Check http://speeddemosarchive.com/Solstice.html; it has a 100% room run in fifteen minutes.

Heh. That's my run. I also did a pure speed one in 6:42, but there's no video for that one.

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Your run is innapropriate. That is the best word for it.

Hours of my life dedicated to that game and all I managed to find was seventy some percent. Secret rooms under spikes? Insane-O leaps and credit collections? No death? FIFTEEN MINUTES?

Very nice, sir. I have finally seen every room in the game.

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  • 2 weeks later...
You want to know how anyone can beat the game in under seven minutes? I want to know how to get more than seventy seven percent of the map. Find me a video of THAT and I WILL birth your children (even though China is keeping me from even birthing a healthy stool).

Check http://speeddemosarchive.com/Solstice.html; it has a 100% room run in fifteen minutes.

Jesus Fucking Christ.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...
You want to know how anyone can beat the game in under seven minutes? I want to know how to get more than seventy seven percent of the map. Find me a video of THAT and I WILL birth your children (even though China is keeping me from even birthing a healthy stool).

Check http://speeddemosarchive.com/Solstice.html; it has a 100% room run in fifteen minutes.

Yeah, I just watched Lucid's speed run independent of this, and all I could think was "What the hell is going on with this game?" The gameplay never made any sense the whole way through.

But yeah, the mix is still good, but be sure to check out the source material. Personally, I was already open-minded to this without it. But for a lot of n00bs like MrBogus above it's just like EarthBound where, if you've never heard the source material, some of the weirder mixes apparently sound like dogshit.

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  • 2 weeks later...

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