Mario Kart 64 - Frappe Holiday Race (Frappe Snowland remix)

[MartinH]

https://youtu.be/I5QOhGgKSQA

One of the hardest decisions of the year, what christmas holiday special should I do?? I'm not sure I even did one last year, I think I worked on the title theme from Yoshi's Island but couldn't release it in time for christmas. I was more prepared this year, starting up much earlier. Since the start of my new job assignment I don't have much time left for this kind of fun stuff. But I woke up one day and had the nastiest of mancolds I could think of. I took the opportunity of more time for writing on my remix, and here we are. Released in good time for christmas. Yay

So what about the choice of song. I always liked the Mario games winter stage themes, many of them so happy and kind of cute. Frappe Snowland, which I have raced so many times when N64 was the latest technology, I couldn't resist doing something with it. It's also the theme of the Sherbet Land course, I think both is represented in later Mario Kart games. 

Besides the happy melody, I wasn't sure how to make it sound more "christmacy", but I did some new stuff for the song, put a shimmering bell in here and there, and a tambourine sounding kind of similar to the traditional christmas bells you can hear in songs like Jingle Bells. At the same time, I didn't want it to sound too much christmas, I want it to be good for all around the year, and maybe be played whenever you want another race in your local Mario Kart winter course even if it's hot and sunny.

Of course I also wrote a more ambient part, half tempo with variants of some melodies and a very echoed and delayed solo (love writing that stuff). This is the kind of song I have so many ideas for, still wondering if I shouldn't have put more variations to this, ideas just keep spinning. But I'm just gonna be happy with the song as it is right now.

I have come to the point when I've gone through so many great themes in video games, I begin to feel like I need to re-remix them all xD Much has happened to my skills and way of working with remixes since I first started two years ago. Themes I did two years ago will sound so much different now, for sure. 

What do you think of that idea? Is it crazy re-remixing something from the past? Or could it be cool to see how it would end up today?

For now, I wish you all a lovely december, I hope you can enjoy some of my music and maybe come to think of some good old memories it brings to you.

/Neon X