OCR04744 - *YES* Silent Hill "Reincarnation on Otherside" *PROJECT*

[Emunator]

Artist Name: Lucas Guimaraes, Emunator ft. Stemage, Chromatic Apparatus

NOTE: THIS TRACK IS FOR THE PIXEL MIXERS SILENT HILL ALBUM. IF THIS IS APPROVED, DO NOT POST UNTIL THAT COMES OUT.

Lucas Guimaraes - Arrangement, Master
Emunator - Production, Mix
Stemage - Guitars
Chromatic Apparatus - Cello

hey you know how I do something different for each cover? Apparently this one's twist is 'giving it a more conservative treatment'.

Half-joking aside, I don't think there's a whole lot too interesting to say about this one. I grabbed Stemage, CA, and a mandolinist. My big goal with this track was to have it be my return to Pixel Mixers albums. And then, well, a lot happened during this and a lot happened after this. The very, very short explanation to a long story is I just wanted this track over with.

But then I thought about it later - I don't think it was just that. I know I've often harped on other people for having their arrangements be too conservative, but there's just times where the original source tune already lends itself well as a song instead of an infinite loop. Kaze no Ne from Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles is a great example of this. I've brought it up in DoD reviews that both arrangements I've heard of that track are very conservative. But I always emphasize: That's not inherently a bad thing if you know to make other elements stand on their own.

Okay, that's enough talking about structure. So my original vision of this was a combo between psychedelic rock and synthwave, which we met in our weirdness. In my journey to get this track over with (delays in performers, bit of a block with the arrangement, etc), Wes (Emunator) offered to help with the mix. Funny enough it only started as drums, but it turned into the full thing. Then he passed it to me to wrap up.

Also worth noting, this is my first track with Stemage since Hallucinatory Province. That's like, a 6 year gap in-between tracks. Yeah... uh, we definitely need to keep doing more psychedelic songs together (I was going to say "Psychedelic stuff" but that might have other implications.) I'm trying to make my gaps in-between working with collaborators less long, whoops. ?

I hope you all enjoy!

[prophetik music]

sfx to start, then some panning mandolin and arpeggiated guitar work. the beat hits at 0:31. i like the bass tone immediately and also like the way the elements are woven together here. sax is a bit out of time in a way that was confusing at first. there's a break at 1:09 and the celli here sound nice, and the groove that comes in right after is a really energetic and pressing sound that i like a lot. melody's back in at 1:49 and it's quiet, with the (fun) guitar work covering it up quite a bit. false ending at 2:17 is really just an excuse to lean more into stemage which i think is a great decision. there's an outro that starts at 2:59 and is mostly just sfx, and it's done.

this is pretty straightforward, but i wouldn't call it conservative. i like the way you've taken the individual elements of the original and pieced them back together in interesting ways. this is really solid. nice work.

 

 

YES

[Liontamer]

Swanky cover at :11; good personality to it. Better snap to the beats at :31 than Lucas's previous XC sub I judged, though I'd argue the pattern lasted too long until 1:09. Very nice dropoff at 1:09. Beats are back at 1:29. 1:48 goes for another section of the theme and I like the guitar work behind it until 2:17. Brief dropoff at 2:17, then goes back to the previous textures until ramping up at 2:29 with a synth line that was cutting through well until that finished at 2:59 and wrapped up. 2:19 would have been a good point to vary up the core beat pattern, but other things were significantly changing around it, so I'll have to live with it, even though it plods for me. Still, this is definitely a cool approach to a melodically conservative arrangement; the part-writing, performances, and textural changes. Diggin' it!

YES

[Hemophiliac]

Once this gets into it's meat and potatoes it's not at all what you'd expect.  While the overall approach is fairly straight-forward melodically there's a ton of personalization everywhere else.

0:31 with that beat and bass coming in is awesome.  1:28-1:47 felt like something we might hear in a Bond score with that guitar line.  Speaking of the guitars, fantastic performance from those.

Drum and mix is much better than most of your previous works, and it was a great call to bring Emunator on to help out in that aspect.

1:48-2:58 I can barely make out the tremolo mandolin going the whole time. I suspect it would be hard to make this cut through unless you were adding distortion and saturation to help it take up more space. Makes me wonder if it's supposed to take the lead more or not.

In the end the vibe wins it out for me, and the performances from Stemage and CA are strong.

YES

[MindWanderer]

Every eclectic take on the tune, though keeping in that same dark atmospheric tone. Tons of variation to simple source material, that always keeps the track moving. Fantastic performances.

I did feel like the climax was a little weak. 2:30 introduces a piercing LFO lead that causes the whole track to pump while it warbles in and out. The 808-style snares here sound radically out of place with the rest of the sound palette, and I found them jarring. Everything else sounded clear and well-considered, though the Bond guitars were an odd choice.

Overall an easy

YES