ReMix:Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door "Baby Dreams of Lost Civilizations" 3:15

Esther's five-and-a-half now, but I still remember when Esther's Dreams was first presented to me by some amazing artists who chipped in for a baby-friendly set of mellow, playful VGM arrangements, I still appreciate the heck out of it, & I still listen to and dig the arrangements myself. If you or someone you know recently became a parent, or is expecting, make sure you let 'em know about the album! This short-but-oh-so-sweet piano & chiptune exploration of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door comes courtesy of Lemonectric (Benjamin Hoffman):

"Recently, I was thinking about how my dreams have changed as I age. I used to have dreams about skeleton-filled hedge mazes and villages blasting off into space to avoid volcanic eruptions, and now it seems like all I dream about is being a day late for work. So this arrangement is dedicated to the often insane imagination of children. You may have built over it with grown-up experiences, but it's still under there somewhere if you're willing to turn sideways and fall through a grate."

Don't ever lose that spark :) Fellow father Larry Oji writes:

"I've been thinking a lot about my own daughter today and wanted to put something forward from Esther's Dreams in my capacity as co-director, so it's great to line up this piece, which was beautiful arranging by Ben. It holds fast melodically to the source and carries much of the same tone, but has a lot of additive instrumentation and writing, along with the electro/chiptune accents, that helped this meaningfully stand apart from the original. (By the way, if you want another great ReMix from the same game, check out Ben's other PM:TTYD mix "Mare Undarum," which is full of groove bias and incorporates lot of other Nintendo themes. :-D)"

What he said; excellent to see the Paper Mario games' soundtracks further represented on OCR, and on behalf of Esther & myself, a huge thanks to everyone involved, Larry for co-directing, & Ben for this imaginative, spiralling, & serene journey!