ReMix:Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin "Hail to the Present" 3:13

YoshiBlade starts our week off with a phantasmagorical EDM arrangement of Portrait of Ruin, off the Candy Corn EP he treated us all to last Halloween. Rather than typical submission comments, he passed onto us a letter lost to time:

Oxford, England
Dec. 5th, 1936

Esteemed colleagues, I present to you the most peculiar occurrence I can recall in all my years. Approximately 10:31 P.M., I attempted to reach Cairo Relay Station. I felt it best to contact Dr. Carter and report on our current situation, when, as quickly as I have ever seen, an errant sandstorm blew in from the East. Our radio produced nothing but static on frequencies I know to be valid, until I heard the most haunting sounds that, I should think, have ever existed. My immediate reaction was to engage my personal wire recorder and capture these bizarre sounds. The wave-like squelching seems to be a warped radio signal, yet I clearly hear a violin and drums that beat with a rhythm I found to be irresistible and drives with a spirit I have not yet encountered in my travels. There seem to be an interaction between a one Jonathan and Claire and a yet unknown female (whose voice is like that of a siren to my ears). The strange effects, which I can only deduce are of an electronic origin (which are of no discernible origin, at least no current origin) clip and stutter, twisting the waveform of these fantastical sounds, as if one were fumbling with a tuning knob, which is very apropos, due to the nature of my interaction with this eerie encounter, the likes of which may very well change not only how we Egyptologists understand this mysterious place, but our very understand of the past, present, and future.

Prof. Harker, PhD, Esq., MD, Rev., LMNOP

Just gotta say, YoshiBlade is one hella creative dude; love the context here, as Harker describes EDM in the vernacular of his day. That same creativity permeated Candy Corn, which for me was all treat and no trick, delivering on the vocal drama concept and dropping some tasty electronic bombs in the process. This mix is a bit lower-key than some of the other cuts on the album, and never really goes full-force, but instead lurks in the shadows while throwing some intensely modulated synth leads your way. YB resubbed this with some tweaks based on panel feedback; most judges still weren't feeling the game samples 110%, but almost everything else clicked. Liontamer writes:

"The main issue I had with the previous version was the overall texture sounding puny; thankfully, this has been adequately filled out. Even with some relatively simple writing for the beat patterns, they now fill up the background better. I still had the same criticisms on the lossy sound, and the voice clips feeling disconnected from the track, but the arrangement's strong enough to carry this. Would have liked for this to sound sharper, but re-balancing some of the more problematic instrument combinations and beefing up the soundscape were enough to nudge this over the line."

Your mileage mar vary on the voice clips; I didn't mind them, but they perhaps make more sense in the larger context of the album and/or if you've played Portrait of Ruin. Otherwise, a little more understated but still detailed & fun work from YoshiBlade, with some especially organic & exciting lead synth parts!