ReMix:Amnesia: The Dark Descent "The Dark Rebirth: 1983" 2:12

Spoooooky! It's Halloween season, and while COVID means things will be a little different this year, we still got the *spirit*, as Mike Norvak (Miguel Ángel Ramírez López) shares his third featured mix, a short horror/ambient/synthwave take on the menu theme from horror classic Amnesia: The Dark Descent, reenvisioning it as the opener for a TV series:

"What if Amnesia the game has been made in 1983 as a series? Well, this would have been the intro!

I made this remix as part of my album Sample & Horror, using soft emulations of various eighties synths for a retro approach."

I'd watch this show; as someone who consumed a good deal of 1980's-era television, I think Mike nailed the concept and did a good job merging the ambient, FX-driven horror atmosphere with big synth-pop drums & an elastic bassline. It's short, but that matches the aesthetic - one can readily picture credits fading in & out, leading up to a logo reveal, then fade to black... Rexy evaluated:

"What's better than one powerful remix off a horror-themed album from one artist? How about two of them? Furthermore, the theme for Amnesia has a melody so minimal I can count the number of notes on just my fingers and toes alone - and Mike took this enigma of a source into a well-executed direction!

The track starts safely while going through the first half with the minimal low pad and minimal percussion / SFX. Then at 0:49, it went into full '80s TV theme feel - octave bass, synth arpeggio, slow synth attacks, and all - with power chord harmonies given to the notation. Add in the finisher with the arp fadeout, lingering low synth and vinyl static, and it's clear that he found an idea with something incredibly restrictive and squeezed plenty of substance and textural variations out of it. The production values are high too - well-balanced, appropriate timbres for the genre direction, and a sweet application of reverb and delay to add to the track's tone. Mike implied this to be an "interlude" on Sample & Horror, but here it feels like a complete package - and one that I'd like to see added to the Halloween tag upon posting!"

Agreed, & done; neat idea, well-executed, and while brief, manages to set the stage & develop enough to feel satisfying and complete, as Bev states. Larry & I actually guest-judged for the IGF awards the year that Amnesia was being considered, and had nothing but good things to say about its use of atmosphere & texture to heighten tension and scare the pants off gamers. Good times; check this mix out & check out the rest of Sample & Horror for more!