ReMix:Amnesia: The Dark Descent "The Shadow" 4:24

Mike Norvak (Miguel Ángel Ramírez López) returns with a dance ReMix of Amnesia: The Dark Descent! But wait... haven't we actually done this dance before??? Well, maybe the last time around was more of a danse macabre. This is indeed Mike's second OC ReMix of the same theme, as he provided a sinister cinematic version of Amnesia's main theme for Halloween 2020! This more recent interpretation off of Mike's Re​:​Amnesia album (from his netlabel Noise Boulder Records) remains eerie, but also encourages the dark denizens of the night to shake and shamble to the beat. After getting over the hurdle of identifying the source usage, judge MindWanderer was all aboard:

"I too was worried when I heard the source material, since it's borderline what I'd call "music." Mostly ambient sounds, with just some slow double bass, three notes at a time, and as Larry said, 12 notes total. But the remix is definitely dominantly arranged around that theme. I'd describe it as 50% source material and 95% original, somehow.

"Strong sound design" is an understatement: these are some of the most well-chosen synths I've heard in an arrangement for a long time. There's a ton of them and they're all used expertly.

The ending is a little meh, but it would work fine as part of a set.

This is hugely creative, with excellent design and production chops on display throughout. Good stuff."

While also noting the desire for more percussion writing variation within his complete comments, DarkSim offered strong marks on Norvak's sound design as well:

"This remix really goes hard for the most part, with punchy kick and snares, gnarly bass, and some of the most distorted leads to cut through it all. Where it stood out to me, however, was the section from 2:34. The vocal pads lead into a more mellow snare sound, with some gorgeous bells panned around the space. Props to the sound design for managing to somehow blend all that with a heavily distorted lead at 2:57. This lead allows the piece to segue back into heavier territory with what I call the ‘cheese grater’ synth at 3:20. Listen to that swirling, snarling bass as well - another highlight."

It beeps, it warbles, it pulsates. Indeed, the atmosphere of "The Shadow" lives and breathes with Mike Norvak's unexpected DnB treatment of a minimalist bit of modern VGM. Mikko Tarmia's source tune was only 12 notes, i.e. seemingly not much to work with, yet Mike's imaginative original writing additions integrated nicely with Tarmia's melody, both in terms of sounding out on top of the menu theme as well as giving breaks from it with completely new composition that thematically clicked. Mike joins a small club of OC ReMixers who have successfully arranged the same theme twice, but he's the only one to have had their pair posted in celebration of Halloween! "Still having nightmares, I see..."