ReMix:Phantasy Star II "The Demon Star" 3:14

A very happy belated birthday to Sir_NutS (Paul Michael Molina), who sends us our first Phantasy Star ReMix in over three years, working with Stephen Kelly for an infectiously-vocoded, cosmically-energetic synthwave arrangement of "Promised Mystery ~ Hidepipe" that'll get your blood pumping:

"I made this as a gift to RadioSEGA's SEGA Mixer Drive show, every Friday at 9 pm UK time, check it out! Rexy, the hostess of the show, has showcased my music for years there, for which I'm very thankful. I wanted to give them something back, so they premiered it before I uploaded it anywhere else.

I never heard this OST before, but I had to evaluate a remix of this song and found myself liking the source a lot. I wanted to do some synthwave with it, but I didn't want to do something too vanilla, so I decided I would make it dark and big and heavy. The end result is sort of a mix of synthwave and heavy metal elements. I specially had a lot of fun with the more unconventional sections such as the sorta progressive break near the end.

Stephen Kelly is once again featured here as he graciously provided the voice for the different (and kinda heavy and creepy) vocoded clips."

ALWAYS great to see Phantasy Star get some love; due to my affection for the series, this almost feels like a gift to me personally, and it WAS a gift to RadioSEGA. Whose birthday was it, again? ;) Stephen's dystopian vocoded warnings lend an appropriately sci-fi vibe, and Mike works in some guitars for a little more raw aggression. Larry writes:

"Loved the energy and approach here, as this source tune has been a favorite of mine since Quinn Fox's "Slick Uniforms" back in the VGMix2 days (later remade into "Boss Uniform" on OCR). The arrangement of the source tune's bassline as the anchor of the track at :16 was cool; it was such an understated line in the source, but here you gave it tons of power. Stephen's robo "PHAN-TA-SY" cameos were a nice touch as well. I hope you revisit the Phantasy Star series again, Mike, especially for zircon and djp's eventual/pipe-dream project. Let's go! :-)"

Many bridges to cross before I'd embark on such a journey, but it's definitely on my VGM bucket list, and this is EXACTLY the type of mix that would be included. Mike nails the hype 80's power drums, lays on thicc synths, and uses guitars & talking/vox to heighten the impact, resulting in a piece that channels formidable energy & excitement and pays homage to a fantastic RPG. Enjoy!