ReMix:The Guardian Legend "Arboreality" 4:16

It's been over four years since our last mix of NES VGM classic The Guardian Legend, and about:blank (Chris Bouchard) is here to fix that with an atmospheric, mutated downtempo/hip-hop instrumental take on "Dungeon: Area 3, 4":

"The Guardian Legend has been on my list of games to remix since I discovered this site by looking up the soundtrack on dial-up internet well over a decade ago. The forest corridor music is fairly upbeat, and I had always envisioned creating a fast-paced remix with frenetic keyboard solos, really loud snares, and so on. Once I actually sat down to make this, however, I ended up taking it in the opposite direction.

The result is a slower, atmospheric take on the original. I made chords out of one segment of the original lead melody (at about 0:20 in the original) to create a "chorus," (at about 1:04 in the remix). The part at 2:01 strays a bit from the source material, but builds into a solo that leads back to the original melody."

Very striking, shimmering, sample & hold style effects at play here - Chris can perhaps chime in with some production specifics, but at 1'05" the accompaniment starts folding space & appears to have a random, tempo-synced modulator of some ilk imparting quite a bit of motion. It ultimately gives things a more experimental feel than they would otherwise have had, but the vibe is still relatively chill & has some more traditional lo-fi & trap/hip-hop components. The ending cut off abruptly on the initial submission, but after Chris fixed that, judges were unanimous; prophetik music writes:

"oh, that's a nice vibe when everything comes in at 0:28. the crunchy synths are fun to hear. there's some significant subbass going on too which is also really smooth. i didn't feel like the background or bass competed with the leads, so that might be more speaker/headphone dependent. it is significant so bass-boosted headphones would probably bark a lot at that.

like jive i really like the digital glitchiness, and i think it adds a lot to listen to on subsequent listens. the drums are indeed fairly straightforward, it doesn't sound there's a lot of consistent change-up there but they're doing what's needed to keep it moving. i did really like at 2:45 when it really got big."

Some unusual production techniques built on a solid lo-fi/hip-hop foundation, and a good degree of dynamic contrast with the quieter nature intro/outro bookending some big drums, kinetic synths, & varied points of interest - really cool, creative take from Chris that mixes the familiar & the alien into a satisfying, exploratory groove. Enjoy!