ReMix:Mario Paint "I have Seen the yellow paint" 4:20

Not only has Mario Month brought in newcomers (more to come!), it's also done a great job of bringing back some folks we haven't gotten submissions from in a while! I recently amended our Submission Standards to make clear that we always love old gold: "Your submission does not need to be newly or exclusively created for OverClocked ReMix; past arrangements made for other personal, community, or commercial projects are welcome, so long as any previous contracts or terms are not prohibitive." This just makes explicit what had always been implicit; in other words, submitting anything from your back catalog is always great! We're therefore lucky and thankful to have one half of Marshall Art and Ship to Shore PhonoCo. audio engineer Jeffrey Roberts back in the mix, as jmr challenges your senses with a droning rock rendition of Mario Paint's "Mysterious" theme! But... are you ready? jmr's not so sure:

"I saw you were looking for Mario arrangements. Here's a drone metal/noise rock Mario Paint arrangement I recorded back in 2018, but with a fresh mix and master treatment. Your tweet said ANY genre!! Here's hoping this submission doesn't make you regret those words. ;)

Source song: https://youtu.be/qIGB5mmx_lk
I'd recommend listening to this first to set your expectations accordingly - this isn't one of the happy, energetic tunes that Mario Paint is known for.

Think Sunn O))) meets Sigur Rós. Excessive distortion, saturation, etc. are genre norms here, and are completely intentional. It's not meant to be an easy listen.

Guitar, (delightfully out of tune) upright piano, vocals, and the little random noises are my own recordings; drums, bass, and synth layers are sampled/VSTs.

I swear I'll submit something more conventional soon. Hope you all are well. <3"

Before we ask if you can handle it, we had to ask ourselves, could *we* handle it? If you've been a LOOOONG-time OC ReMix listener, then you already know the answer! Judge MindWanderer laid it out:

"Thanks, I hate it.

YES

In all seriousness, there's really no problem with this sort of thing. We really do embrace all genres for the site, regardless of our personal preferences — and some of us genuinely like this sort of thing. The mixdown is a little grungy, but I expect that for this genre. There's a little bit of clipping during the big hits, but again the genre excuses it (though it still should ideally peak below 0dB). I can't see a compelling reason to say no."

Folks shouldn't (but understandably do) wonder if we can pass controversial or less accessible genres. As long as the interpretive VGM arrangement is the focus and the production is reasonable, we're on board. Great to get a stylistic co-sign from another Sigur Rós fan in Emunator, who loved hearing another side of jmr as a solo act that we haven't gotten to witness compared to his past ReMixes:

"It's practically unfathomable that this is coming from the same artist that gave us downright-adorable remixes such as Meteorites and Rabbits or The Glacier's Peak. Talk about a 180! But as someone whose personal tastes run the gamut from cutesy anime music all the way to black metal, this perfectly encapsulates what I love about the OC ReMix community, and how it fosters an environment where boundary-breaking experiments are not just tolerated, but encouraged, without fear of needing to maintain a "personal brand" or creating consumer-friendly content.

I've listened to a lot of Sigur Rós, having seen them live in concert on two separate occasions now, and this absolutely captures the essence of their more abstract, droning wall-of-sound experiments, down to the subtle synth flourishes and field recordings, or the minimal but highly impactful drum layers. You did justice to your inspirations here with a source tune that I would never in a million years have taken in this direction myself.

Never apologize for keeping it weird! \m/"

Fellow judge Chimpazilla enjoyed this even more than the original track just from being a fan of weird tracks, so we can definitely handle weird around here. I'd say this source tune -- already a droning and out there ambient affair no matter what -- actually translates very well here. The distortion's tasteful and not overdone, so Jeff's effective genre transformation adds a lot of both body and grit to this theme, all while retaining a spacey and spacious mood that's not divorced from the original style in Mario Paint. I have Seen the yellow paint indeed, and I hope you See the light! :-)