ReMix:Nicky Boom "Looking for the Lazy Guy" 4:39

Newcomer Lolo of Grospixels (Laurent Roucairol) gives us our first featured mix of French-made sidescroller Nicky Boom, arranged in an upbeat rock style that channels Dire Straits at points & mixes in some quirky synth bits:

"I'm Laurent from the Grospixels team (along with Jean-Christian Verdez, Max Noël, and Olivier Tamagna who are from the team but don't play on this submission). I'd like to submit the latest song we made: the intro theme from Nicky Boom, composed by Alain Lambin (who also did the game's graphics). Nicky Boom is a 1992 French platform game for the Amiga, published by Microids.

As a title, I suggest "Looking for the Lazy Guy." This refers to the original theme's composer, Alain Lambin. I've been desperately trying to reach him to have his opinion on the remix, but, alas, he's nowhere to be found these days, completely out of the video game industry. And the word "lambin," in French, means "lazy guy." So it could make a funny title, if not easy to understand.

The original is, I think, quite a relaxing and moving tune. I did the cover by myself because other Grospixels members are not presently available. I wanted to pay a tribute to this charming game and this very nice music, aiming at simplicity. In 2008, I tried a submission at OCR and was rejected, wich was a shock and refrained me from trying again until today. I think our productions sound better now.

The main inspiration behind this arrangement is the slide guitar: I wanted to use my bottleneck and gain some confidence with it (I'm no expert). I also wanted to use vintage analog synth sounds: Moog, Mellotron, and Hammond organ, since I'm mainly into seventies music. The arrangement is pretty faithful to the original, wich I hope is a good choice. I think this music is not very well known, so the priority might be to make people discover its original melodies.

As for the software, I used FL Studio and mainly freeware plugins (except the drums, programmed with EZdrummer). I programmed the keyboard parts and played bass and electric guitar with an amp simulator. Since the time I've submitted this remix, I've remastered it with Ozone 9 and I think it sounds better like that.

Thank you very much in advance for publishing this recording, this is a great accomplishment for me! I can't wait to read the judges comments, to learn about what I should keep on working on.

I hope you'll like this recording!"

So yes, we now *officially* have a mix title with a pun in French :) I love seventies music, too, and this definitely embraces that aesthetic - good job balancing in the organ, I like the playfulness of the synth bits, and the guitar gets more agile & shines as things progress. Given that the keys & drums are synthetic, the blend against the performed guitar & bass is pretty cohesive, carrying the illusion of an ensemble rather well. DragonAvenger writes:

"I really enjoyed the combination of instruments, and the overall bubbly nature of the track. Both energetic and relaxed at the same time."

Precisely that - it's got momentum/energy, but it also feels rather chill at the same time. Emunator adds:

"This track starts off rather understated and sparse, but with each instrument and tone standing out in its own way. For example, I thought the drumming was a ton of fun with some excellent use of fills throughout, and I appreciate the back and forth between the bubbly synths and the vintage guitar lead. The guitar tones were adeptly chosen and extremely vibey across the board as well. I see where the other judges are coming from regarding balance, but I felt like it was overstated in terms of how much it impacted the quality of the final product - overall, this is definitely above the bar in my book. Well done!"

Judges did cite some potential balance issues, but I agree with the above in that they weren't overly disruptive. Fun, positive 70s rock vibes from Lolo & Grospixels; glad the revision & resubmission happened, and always cool to be posting more Amiga stuff and welcoming new artists - enjoy!