ReMix:Hollow Knight "Mystic Mycology" 3:22

More from Voidheart, as newcomer donut (Chris Erickson) collabs with two other artists for a more playful/quirky folk + cinematic take on "Fungal Wastes," featuring live winds, chromatic percussion, & even an EWI controller performance:

• donut (Chris Erickson) - arrangement, clarinet, soprano/tenor recorder
• Sean R. Hanson - marimba, glockenspiel, chimes
• Deckels (Dan Eckels) - EWI

donut (Chris Erickson) writes:

"This piece was my arrangement for the Pixel Mixers' Voidheart album with the premise "What if not sad bugs, but cutie bugs?" for a more whimsical, otherworldly fae-touched feel. Despite never playing Hollow Knight, I fell in love with the soundtrack and this tune in particular had these haunting and gorgeous woodwind lines I really wanted to play. I just decided to stick them on different instruments than the originals to fit the arrangement direction. ':-D

OK, let's try this again! Who'd have thunk that you shouldn't mix on your dopey work headset? (-_-)ゞ I may or may not have learned some things in the year+ that passed since making this. (-_-)ゞ (-_-)ゞ

Luckily, I had enough ambient room recording left over to use as a basis for noise subtraction for the winds -- and it was indeed the reverb setting on the glock causing some additional weirdness -- so, I hope that got rid of enough of the hiss to get this over the finish line. Also manually adjusted some volume peaks so I could boost the whole thing up a bit in loudness."

The original submission had some hiss that judges picked up on, which was fully addressed in this resubmission, resulting in unanimous approval; kudos are in order. I confess to this mix triggering a sense of guilt that I kinda stopped playing Hollow Knight at about 40%, but I WILL return... one day. With a pseudonym like "donut," things HAVE to be good, and Chris delivers with an organic, acoustic jam that leans heavily on a blend of pointillistic, staccato chromatic percussion paired with longer, sustained wind melodies. DarkSim writes:

"What a playful, innocent interpretation of the theme! The recorders serve to accentuate the childlike qualities, and I like how they've been layered to provide a bit more texture to the sound. Superb instrumentation choices throughout. Those little descending runs on the clarinet at 1:24 and 2:59 put me in mind of "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", and you've got a glockenspiel in there too as perhaps another nod to that."

Emunator adds:

"This remains an absolute delight to listen to! The instrumentation sounds so organic and full of life, it evokes a feeling of a million little bugs skittering about in a hidden underground society in the most lovely way. I'm loving the contrast between the airy lead melodies and the grounding, percussive mallets and chimes. You described this in your original submission letter as "otherworldly fae-touched" and I don't think I could have said it better myself.

Now that the hiss is out of the way, there's nothing holding this back. Great work, congratulations!"

Ditto that; the specific blend of contrasting instrumentation does have an active, entomological vibe to it, and the overall arrangement is a more engaging, plucky take on the comparatively somber original. Great stuff from donut & co. - check it out, then check out the full album!