ReMix:Castlevania "Fleaman's Groove" 2:57

VAMPIRE WEEKEND! How about some dramatic solo piano Castlevania jazz/classical from Nostalvania for your Saturday afternoon? Markus returns again to his namesake series with this arrangement, floating somewhere in between classical & jazz and offering up a new take on the popular "Wicked Child" theme:

"Here's my newest submission and it's (surprise) another Castlevania piano remix. This is actually my third Castlevania remix in a row. The arrangement is actually pretty conservative and a bit close to the source, but I think there's just enough variation to qualify as an OC ReMix (I hope). This was not a real live performance. I did play everything in on my piano, but used quantisation (partially) and some editing afterwards. Thanks for listening and judging!"

Because he didn't jazz it up quite as much, this does run closer to the source; while I could have seen a swingin' 3/4 adaptation working quite nicely, this more straightforward approach maintains the forward drive/push of the original - reminds me of JJT's excellent arrangement of F-Zero during the softer bits. Liontamer writes:

"The piano sound could use more body & richness, but this arrangement gets it done. I liked the drawdown from 1:33-1:49, followed by 1:49-1:59's delicate rebuild before re-raising the intensity again at 2:00. While we have several rocked-out interpretations of "Wicked Child" (including those by the lowercased-named goat and the uppercase-named BONKERS), we had yet to get a more laid-back version, so it's cool to add something that's more jazzy to the picture! Picturing a Fleaman hopping to this makes no sense, but I'm laughing at the imagery. :-) Thanks, Markus!"

Chimpazilla adds an Amadeus reference into her comments, for bonus points (of course, in the film, it was actually backhanded praise from Mozart to Salieri...):

"When one hears such sounds, what can one say, but... "Nostalvania!" Seriously Markus, can you please just make something groovy next time, I'm getting tired of these bland, expressionless and definitely grooveless tracks. SHEESH. LOVE IT AS USUAL. :-D"

Some great examples of the effective use of dynamic contrast in this arrangement & performance. At just under three minutes, this feels complete, and at the same time I could actually see Markus covering the same exact source in the future and going in an entirely different direction - a testament both to the versatility of the instrument and of course his own arranging skills. Enjoy the mix, and enjoy your weekend!