OCR04885 - *YES* Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker "Valoo's Big Gay Dance"

[Liontamer ⚖️]

Artist Name: The Vodoú Queen

Finally, a Zelda arrangement in my grasp! MWAHAHAHA!!!

Ahem, *evil C H A O S-filled cackles* aside, welcome to my take on Dragon Roost Island! Done for Pixel Mixers' upcoming Wind Waker: Songs of the Great Sea album, it was an absolute blast, pleasure, and I feel very lucky and grateful to have been able to snag the opportunity at such a popular track. It's definitely one of my top 10 favorite in the entire Zelda franchise / library, starting all the way from Gen 1 - the NES, and I certainly did not hesitate to put my all forth on this one.

I still remember to this day the wondrous joy I got out of encroaching upon the land of Dragon Roost for the first time as a teen playing Wind Waker on release (damn, I feel old, lol.) Those castanets...that Spanish flamenco guitar, that Calypso-island, con brio beat. For years and to this day, no matter the medium, the context, or the remix this track has undergone, it still fills me with that excited whimsy and odd...happy-sensation of FINALLY finding land after aimlessly sailing across the vast Great Ocean for hours on end, and getting to explore! I don't know why this song in particular hit me like it did (most of the WW OST did, TBH, with how flavorful, colorful, rich and full of expression all the tracks were), but I seriously got hooked when--about 9 years after Wind Waker's release--I stumbled onto an outstanding EDM artist called Ephixa, who did a couple of dubstep Zelda remixes , and those songs were a BIG influence and impetus on me wanting to tackle some of the same iconic Zelda tracks, years later.

I'm not entirely sure HOW to describe the process and making of this remix, as it all kinda came through in a blur; (I've been on an incredibly weird high and tizzy with a veritable hill of VG remixes for albums to conquer, lately, and with all that comes a lot of emotional peaks and valleys and moments of doubt and procrastination and banging my head against the proverbial wall to "make it before I break it [me]"...so. . . it's kinda hard ATM to string a coherent thought on that said process, when it's a lot more about feeling it sometimes than strategic planning--even though every mix I do has a fair share of plotting-things-out, as well.) As an old, not-born-in, but-raised-in Floridian resident myself, it's like being in a hurricane on the beach-front (and it's a WILD experience, let me tell you!) Not being fully musically-trained in the theoretical sense makes...writing it all down, laced in the jargon and the gear and the FX and the programming - for those music science nerd-out-types - all the more difficult and a struggle, haha. But, the major thing I was assured of in making this remix was that I wanted to strengthen my EDM-game. The only clear voice in my head the whole time was: "make your mark on this, sweetheart ♥."

And I hope I did, as I do with all my mixes to-date.

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the wide variety of artist takes on DRI, both on here in OCR, and in the wider realms on Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. I know most of them seem to take the form of Orchestral / Acoustic, or EDM, but I tried my best to make this one a unique and different spin. Is it Jungle? Maybe a lil', mostly Drum n' Bass-centric. . . Is it Tropical House? Well, it's got a very Polynesian-infused sauce, with various garnishes and spices borrowed from House, Dubstep and Trance. . . I don't know...but I'm sure Mr. Hemo or Mr. Liontamer will label this one another host to the 'experimental'... ;)

Once again, I don't know what to call my work, or what to label it as, or how to espouse on 'how I did it all' with the fancy words and theory techniques and the music sheets, but its roots run deep, and I hope people listening to it find it to be that same, equal, captivating and explorative feel (and a banger), with that same level of wonder and awe I felt back in 2003 upon reaching the shores of the place that is known as Dragon Roost Island. :)

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Games & Sources

THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: THE WIND WAKER OST; Disc 1, Track 38 - Dragon Roost Island; Artist(s): Kenta Nagata, Hajime Wakai, Toru Minegishi and Koji Kondo; Release Date: 2003; Label: Scitron Digital Content & Nintendo 

[prophetik music ⚖️]

fun original.

opens with sfx and some radio samples that eventually turn into a beat around the 0:25 point. this builds in various ways around the riff that plays in the background of the original in the panflute throughout most of the original, before a significant falling action at 0:58. there's more sfx and eventually the melody's represented in the long-delay synth lead.

beat's back in at 1:17, but this really feels like it's noodling around a lot here. the beat's very forward as compared to the other elements, and the texture keeps changing significantly without really sticking to anything long enough to really feel settled. we go through several feels in maybe 30s before we get back to the melodic material around 1:50-1:55ish. the very light bell-like lead doesn't really feel supported by the intense, powerful kick, and whatever comes in at 2:07 totally crushes everything else because it's in the same range as the kick.

there's a transition at 2:16, and again the pounding bass element is totally overwhelming as compared to the other elements which are all much lighter in timbre. the variety of transformations applied to the overall sound though is really interesting, especially around the 2:50-2:55 area.

the pounding bass persists in the drop at 3:04, and then finally drops at 3:23 when the choir elements come in. there's tons of transformative elements here and this is a really neat section. i personally felt that the tapestop effect and subsequent pitch transformation after the 3:54 slam transition lost a lot of energy from a song form perspective. 

there's one more build back up to 4:14, and loads of overlapping elements to build up intensity again until we hit the outro material at 4:32, and that's that.

there's some really cool concepts here. i feel overall the package is a little more tiktok-brain scattered than it probably needs to be, but a lot of the overall timbres you arrive at are really interesting and have tons of interesting stuff to say when you stay there for more than a few seconds. the balance has some times where it's out of sorts, and the mix might cause some folks to stumble a bit. but i think what's here is an interesting and transformative arrangement, and i think that the mix is good enough to not drag it under the bar. i will admit it took a few listens to get there for me.

 

 

YES

[Liontamer ⚖️]

Very cool intro; great beach/water SFX, then the gradual fade-in of the source elements. Awesome sound design in the first :45 seconds. Oh nice, some voice sampling, followed by in-game SFX. 90 seconds in, this is solid.

Some cool stuff going on at 1:35 for a build-up, then the melody arrives at 1:56. Here, the countermelody and beats are creating clutter, IMO, though it's nothing dealbreaking for the moment. At 2:28, more parts came in that gave the melody support and the track more overall direction. Good textural change at 3:05 to clean up the soundscape and hit the chippy sounds for some contrast. Nice lead and breathier supporting writing from 3:22-3:33 for the chorus. Then some more wilder synth writing underneath that was potentially pushing it into a cacophonous direction, but thankfully things didn't get too busy. The lead at 4:13-4:34 was arguably too quiet compared to all of the other writing around it, but I could still make it out well enough. Nice SFX bookend to the piece at 4:34.

I felt like this had a lot of dynamic similarities to VQ's Lufia II project track. Whereas the first version of that was overstuffed, too busy, and had a lot of clashing elements, this piece was a lot more like the second pass of the Lufia track, where there was more structure, the textures were thinned out and had room to breath, there were constantly effective moments of contrast, and the writing didn't veer off into non-melodious stuff that was detracting and distracting from the overall direction. What genre do we call it? I dunno either. :-P Very stylish!

YES

[jnWake ⚖️]

Starts with some beach/ocean SFX and musical elements get added around 0:19, which I believe correspond to the first flute lines from the source (before the iconic melodies!). Some voice samples from the game are layered in as we continue on a slow electronic vibe until a break at 0:57. There's a build-up here with the main Dragon Roost melody playing on a crystal-ish synth while more SFX plays on top. Around 1:17 it settles on a beat for a short bit and at 1:35 it introduces a different one. There's also a neat harp and finally at 1:57 the main melody takes the spotlight. The bass gets buried a little on this section since the low end gets a bit overwhelming to me, there's a lot of content there. At 2:17 the melody ends and we continue for a bit with the backing and the 0:19 melody getting the spotlight for a bit before the main melody repeats. Soundscape here is very busy, there's A LOT going on but, somehow, most things seem easy to hear. It's overwhelming though. 3:03 introduces a bit of much needed "peace" (relative to the earlier section) but then 3:24 actually delivers on a calm moment featuring the B section from the source. More layers come in and a wild transition moves us back into the 2:17 harp, which gets a cool detune effect as a transition around 4:05. There's another instance of the main melody taking the spotlight and then the track ends with the beach/ocean SFX from the intro.

Arrangement is wild, there's plenty of different interpretations of the source and different electronic dance-ish moods in here. Generally the transitions are cool with a lot of fun sound design ideas. As a personal preference I wish it wasn't changing all the time since some sections feel they could've gotten more development. I also feel the track could have like 50% less samples/sound effects and it wouldn't lose that much, but I suppose the chaos is the intention as well!

On production this is quite interesting, the sound design elements are quite well done with a lot of fun SFX usage and other techniques to create cool transitions (like the ones at 3:53 and 4:08). That said, I do feel there are several moments where it gets OVERWHELMING and there's space to make the soundscape a little easier to digest, for example the combination of a steady kick with a busy bass AND a simple bass all going on at the same time on the 1:57 section is something that could be worked on to be easier on the ears. Similarly, there's points where there's a lot of material on higher frequencies that also can be grating on the ears (for example I found the combo of high frequency stuff around 4:14 to be too much).

Overall, very interesting piece! Arrangement is wild and fun and the production, while having some balance issues, does a good job of supporting the craziness with cool effects and transitions.

YES