ReMix:Mario Golf "Fore on the Floor" 3:41

Kicking September off with a hole-in-one, DarkSim follows up his more obscure debut Amiga 'Dennis' ReMix with our first arrangement of Mario Golf!! This is also our first ReMix of ANY golf-based game; I'll try really hard to keep the punnage and Caddyshack references to an absolute minimum. The artist writes:

"Ah, Mario Golf. Only Nintendo could try and fuse this sedentary sport with an RPG, complete with a world map, levelling up, and a host of secrets and strange characters. I remember one of them holding my wood in his hands and telling me "Golf's fire is in your eyes!" after I found a secret club-maker's hut in the forest. Bizarre stuff, but nonetheless a fantastic game. The soundtrack was surprisingly rich too, and well worth a listen. This catchy number kept bouncing around my brain every now and again, years after I last played it, so I felt I had to do it justice by remixing it. I think the catchiness of the bassline and melody lend themselves well to this upbeat dancey style, but it's also ripe for a blues remix and pretty fun to jam to.

A word on the title - I'd originally gone for "Clubhouse Electro", but was toying with changing it to "Fore on the Floor" until Emunator pushed me over the edge. Definitely the right decision. Thanks go to phantasia, for once again providing excellent, constructive feedback, and my brother for helping me figure out the source material."

Holding your wood in his hands, eh? That bassline is DEFINITELY in the hole; most of the production & instrumentation is on par for good dance/clubby type material, but the bass is tweaked & triggered with an edgier aesthetic that modernizes the overall track. Deia gets the honor:

"One wouldn't think of a strange game like Mario Golf having a good soundtrack, but it proves to show that you can find awesome music in the weirdest of places. As Andrew says, the expansion here is subtle, but nicely done. Everything feels naturally done, and the energy throughout is pretty good. The use of the panning works really well here, and all the different details and effects you added add a lot of shimmer to the piece overall."

It's a little interesting to hear a mix that blends elements of what I'd call "older" electronica with a couple newer techniques, because you just don't hear that combination too often, but I think it works fairly well and gets the source material onto the green. And yeah, interesting source choice; with original music by Sakuraba and some reprised tunes by Kondo, it's a great example of catchy scoring for a sports game. halc adds:

"Nice sidechaining. I think I'd of preferred a shorter, punchier kick, and the drums in general seemed to take a backseat to the synth work, but production was generally pretty good. a little muffled in the low frequencies perhaps, and just slightly overcompressed during the climax in the last 1/4th of the song. nonetheless, great use of stereo effects and panning, you got a really full sounding mix here. The arrangement is fairly straightforward, keeping the melodies mostly in tact, but the added arpeggios, rhythmic shifts and harmonies keep it fresh."

DarkSim actually sent in a minor revision that addressed some of the mixing issues, but I think Drew's comment about drums taking a backseat to synths is accurate - a little more TLC could have pumped the perc up a decade or two & matched it better with the bass. That being said, this is a good expansion on the original that capitalizes on the accessible groove and builds it into something a bit more elaborate. Great to see DarkSim follow up his Amiga mix with yet another previously unmixed source, maintaining a rock-solid foundation for toe-tapping, heavy-putting action.