ReMix:Sonic and the Black Knight "The Icy Journey Through Hope and Sorrow" 3:31

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! I'll be celebrating with the familia tomorrow so it's time for a wintry, seasonal mixpost today, on the eve. Argle & newcomer Cosmic Sounds teamed up to give us our first ReMix of Sonic and the Black Knight. No relation, thank goodness. Although with the lukewarm reception many recent Sonic games have gotten, there are probably worse ideas for the franchise than pairing up with Martin Lawrence. Probably. At any rate, this upbeat piano & orchestral pop arrangement was originally released as part of An OverClocked Christmas V.7 at the end of last year. As fate would have it, AOCCV8 was JUST released this week, so you should definitely check THAT out. This was the first year that the album was NOT produced by Dyne, with The Coop serving double duty on artwork AND coordination, but a plethora of props to both of them for keeping things running strong for eight years in a row! Hopefully we'll see some submissions from V8 in the days & weeks to come. Of this V7 contribution, Argle writes:

"Here's my track from the Christmas album. Remix from a game I've never played, which is rare for me. I prefer to have some emotional connection to a source, but I couldn't decide what to do for this album. I don't even think the source has anything to do with winter or Christmas, but never mind that, it's a Christmas song now. Special thanks to Cosmic Sounds, he pitched this source to me, contributed a few parts, and gave it a name when all was said and done, so I'd like him to have collab credit."

Co-conspirator Cosmic Sounds adds:

"Merlina's theme is a very graceful and lonesome one. One that portrays a lot of her emotions regarding her premonitions about the future of Camelot. It was one of the main songs in the game that I really liked because of the imagery that it presented. I often think of a winter sunset, or a bare tree with the gentle November wind blowing all of the fallen leaves around the sky. This gracefulness and lonesomeness is what I wanted to portray in the parts that I sent to Argle for the collaboration. Argle did an awesome job at incorporating the parts and emotions into the song. :)"

Very poetic; a lot of people often feel down during this time of a year, whether due to seasonal affective disorder or other causes, but while there might be a touch of melancholy here, overall I think it's got a pretty upbeat vibe. Persistence in the face of adversity, braving the elements for the warm hearth at the end of the tunnel, that sort of thing... There's a subtle vein of hip-hop, at least to me, in the on-beat piano chords and little upright bass bits; I could easily have seen this going in a different, more urban direction. Judges found the piano a little stiff and some of the samples a little on the fakey side, and going for more of that style might have played both those qualities off more as strengths, but it all works pretty well nonetheless. Nutritious writes:

"Arrangement is on point with good expansion on the short original theme. Really cool changeup at 2:31 with an effective transition. Way to bring it back to business. Overall, very nice arrangement and pretty solid production minus a couple minor issues. Good stuffs."

Jivemaster adds:

"I find this to be quite a creative piece, taking a short piano number and turning it into a fuller arrangement and plugging in a christmas vibe was a nice choice."

Ditto all that; great to have some newer games/OSTs represented on the site, great to see AOCC continuing its holiday tradition, and seasons greetings to one & all from all of us at OCR!!