ReMix:Secret of Mana "Under Cover of Night" 6:43

Rozovian (Ad G) turns in a funky, creative, & extended take on "In the Dead of Night" from Resonance of the Pure Land, using 6+ minutes to evolve from a rock-solid EDM foundation into more unorthodox territories, extrapolating on a minimal source in the process:

"I *might* be overestimating my ability to remix *any* source. I tried my hand at the four-note thing from Space Invaders way back when. It made it to the panel, but ultimately didn't pass (got one resub vote, tho). So for this project, I grabbed what's essentially a six-note source. Granted, those are chords. And there's a choir bend in there too, and some other stuff. It's sparse. But you can do a lot with a good groove. So that's what I tried to do.

It's a track built on a groove with recurring elements from source, more or less recognizable. A new rhythm for the six-note melody, plus notes preceding those 3-note elements of it. And then a couple of appearances of the main theme of the whole franchise, set to the rhythm I used for the main source as well. Some fun with the bass writing towards the end. A stupid amount of compressors, multiband and parallel and regular; and... that's pretty much it. Nothing fancy, but quite fun to make."

When that EP and kick groove came in, I thought I was listening to Mattias's "Morning, Thinker" - similar bounce/bass/chord combo, but ain't nothing wrong with that, sounds great. Source is obviously minimalist, even more than others on the OST, but Ad does a great job extrapolating and fleshing it out, building the groove & syncopating rhythms to differentiate, even going over the six minute mark. Each introduced element is just so, with a slick hand percussion groove & increasingly edgier textures. If you plotted the deviation from source, arrangement-wise, it would basically be a crescendo, as things get more & more liberal as chords change and the melody varies, helping justify the extended runtime. Album director Jorito writes:

"Rozovian was another late addition to the album. Since he was caught up in the final stages of the Seiken Densetsu 3 album, he wasn't sure if he could finish his remix in time. It's a good thing that he did though. "In the Dead of Night" is a very minimal, very repetitive source, but Rozo managed to turn it into a 6+ minute remix that not only manages to keep you engaged, it also turns it into a more darker, brooding version with strangely also a healthy dose of spirit and energy."

Fellow director The Nikanoru adds:

"Rozovian's "Braincooler" was one of the first songs that drew me to OCR. His choice of source certainly wasn't what I expected but what he did with it was beyond any expectation I had. Rozo delivers a smooth, bouncy sense of foreboding, with just enough twists and bends to keep you guessing what is around the next corner."

A little funkier than most of Ad's other mixes, he really does a superlative job keeping the source on the front burner but expanding the motif into a fully realized track that develops quite a bit; judges were unanimous, with Jivemaster summing things up nicely:

"Source is strongly apparent throughout with a decent amount of originality thrown in to take us to duration, which was impressive given the source is quite short. Production seemed ok, parts were very dry and could have done with a touch of reverb in places, but while things were minimal they didn’t feel empty. I found this mix to be quite original in its execution, with clever use of changes to the arrangement to keep things interesting."

Great stuff and an unexpectedly satisfying & fleshed out interpretation on Resonance of the Pure Land!