ReMix:Super Mario World "The Moon of Bowser" 3:38

Late night mixpost!!

This one is going up (much) later than usual, but that's actually appropriate, because it's a spooky orchestral/rock arrangement of the sinister & popular "Sub Castle BGM" from Super Mario World, brought to you by newcomer N4L4 (Orica Okinaka):

"Sub Castle" in SMW was one of my favourite songs at the time when I met the game in 1990s. So in doing arrangement of "Sub Castle," I didn't want to change a lot, but I tried to make it more orchestral and rock sound. Simple and gorgeous, enjoy my arrangement."

First off, I have to say, that's a pretty dope bassoon sample. I don't use "dope" lightly, especially when discussing bassoons, so that's saying something... this arrangement initially has the appearance of a competent but relatively conservative/intuitive orchestral take on the tune, but things progress nicely and additional ideas are worked in... to be honest, Larry's vote covers almost everything I'd have to say, so it's time for some copypasta:

"Good stuff with the opening adding some original string accents to compliment the good orchestration. Nice use of the mallet percussion at :32 to simulate stomping on a Dry Bones in the game.

Nice transition at 1:03 with SFX to add a little tension. Some of it sounded kind of tacked on, but it integrated well-enough overall. Good original brass writing from 1:34-1:44 as well. I'm both surprised and glad that the instrumentation took some drastic turns at 1:44 to present another side of interpretation and put this on very firm ground with the creativity of the arrangement approach. Sounds like those light electric guitar chugs at 2:38 were influenced by the (Larry-named) "Monstrous Turtles!"

The fadeout ending was a little weak, but on the plus side, it was introducing some new concepts even during the fade instead of retreading previous material. It's a disappointing thing in the sense that it's clear you hadn't run out of ideas yet, but what's here with this arrangement was more than adequately developed. Great stuff that's been like some other successful "Sub Castle BGM" mixes lately, i.e. starting out pretty conservative and dampening expectations, only to then fire up with very interpretive instrumentation and textures. Nice job, Orica, and welcome aboard!"

If that's not a comprehensive vote, I don't know what is :) Really nice separation & dynamics are evident right from the get-go, things eventually rock on a pretty damn epic scale, and while the artist describes the arrangement as "simple," there are actually quite a few ideas going on, and a sweet, satisfying mix of textures. Usually it bothers me when different reverbs/spaces are employed in transition, but somehow it works pretty well here, perhaps due to the manic, over-the-top nature of that iconic progression & rise-fall arp riff. I'm not on either side of the fence when it comes to fadeout endings; I think they CAN work well, I just think they often don't... in this case I'd have preferred something more bombastic & conclusive, but it's not the end of the world... just the end of the mix ;) Fun, flamboyant, impressive, & interesting debut from N4L4, who says something new with a popular source, and says it with style - looking forward to hearing more!