ReMix:Pokémon Red Version "Club Lavender" 3:41

I can't let Liontamer have all the writeup fun :) Newcomer Rux Ton (Dustin St. John) sends us this hard dance EDM take on "Lavender Town" that really embraces the dissonance, nay, rubs our collective faces in it, and we are thankful, because it works. Things that work are good, and while I confess to not being a huge afficionado of harder, more club-oriented EDM (because I'm soooo olddddd.....), I very specifically love how it functions for this particular source. You take quirky, spooky dissonance and you inject 100ccs of hyper, aggressive EDM, and something magic happens. It's at turns silly, infectious, spooky, and rambunctious, and I don't imagine it would pair well with a migraine, but I think Dustin's really cooked up something special:

"WELCOME TO CLUB LAVENDER
GOOD LUCK GETTING OUT
MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Hi, there! My name is Rux Ton and I remixed "Lavender Town" from Pokémon Red (or Blue, but I had Red growing up). It's kind of surreal for me to be sending this e-mail actually because I have been following OC ReMix ever since I was 8 years old (I am 30 now) and I was inspired by so many incredible artists here to the point where I wanted to make music and start remixing! In the beginning, my work wasn't that good and MEGA shoutouts to the community for being so nice to me. I actually was told by someone who was a mod (the name has completely left me, unfortunately, but I hope you know that your advice was the best advice I was ever given) to start working on originals to help develop a style because I was struggling with that at the time.

POKÉMON REMIX TIME! So with "Club Lavender", a slightly generic name I must admit, seems to be the only fitting title for this. I actually have struggled with ever wanting to make a remix again because I got really into making EDM music and this whole identity I created for myself was making heavy bass music. After a while, I realized it's a little hard to just shoehorn a video game melody into this kind of music and I didn't think it's something I'd be able to do. But, because of that, I finally one day made it a challenge and this was the result! These days I make a lot of speed house and hard dance music. This track very much so touches on my roots of what I used to make when I was much younger and this project started to feel special because I was remembering all of the unique ideas I heard on OC ReMix as a kid and how I still have a massive playlist I listen to on the daily (shoutouts to my wife for not only putting up with this playlist all the time, but for seeking more remixes on here of her favorite songs)!

The real challenge here was realizing that this song has a very interesting melody that can either be destroyed if done wrong, or just sound awkward. I like to think I played it out pretty well. This song features 2 drops (pretty common with this kind of music, because of playing it out when I perform for others, I like to give people options in the form of 2 differing drops). The first drop is more of an original idea, where I wanted it to be super minimal and eerie just like the original melody was. Drop 2, I wanted to have more familiarity and actually used the infamous "Lavender Town" arpeggio as the bassline, which I didn't think would work as well as it did, but I am very glad I did it! It felt like the missing puzzle piece! All in all, I have to say I am pretty proud of this remix, and I'm stoked to be able to share it with you all! I hope you guys like this clubby rendition as much as I liked making it! It's time to GET SPOOKY AND SHAKE THAT BOOTY!

Thank you so much for listening, and for reading! I do plan to put this track out, I'd love to see how the judges fare with this and I will time it accordingly if it gets accepted!

Shoutouts to all the judges and OC ReMix fam! Love you all, have a wonderful day/night!"

Awesome backstory, here, and inspiring to see someone following the site for so long turn in such a banger after more than two decades! Structures like these are drop-oriented, and I appreciated the thought process behind distingushing the two, as well. Judges were unanimous; there were some minor production nitpicks & repetition concerns, but everyone was on board with the overall concept/execution, and prophetik music even made the ooh yeah face:

"the melodic content actually comes in at 0:40. huge amount of sound, intentionally loud and weird, and it sounds great. the piano's a bit quiet, but honestly the intense buzz and strangeness is more the point. there's a monster build that hits on a absolutely mega-ballsy long-attack synth drop at 1:20 that is easily the best thing i've heard in two months. i literally made the ooh yeah face when it hit. i love the lead synth in this section too, it's got just enough envelope manipulation to really make it feel different."

Dissonance of this nature, in this context, and of this amplitude, really lets you rub musical salt into the wound in the loveliest of ways; in a single word, I think it would be something like "stank" - but (unequivocally) good stank. Chimpazilla was on board, too:

"I love me some Lavender Town, and this remix is so weird and cool! This is a wonderfully eclectic mix of sounds; playful and energetic. The vocal clips add interest and energy. The drops are clean and cool, sidechaining is just right."

From the opening bars, I thought I could kinda sense where Dustin was going with things, and I was nodding to the beat but ALSO along with his decisions, throughout. Hitting the dissonance so hard really clicks, in my opinion, and "makes it all make sense" - vox & FX, including the breathing, are delicious cheese, and the whole thing hangs together quite nicely. Intense, creative, & club-ready take on a quirky favorite - great debut from Rux Ton!