ReMix:Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest "Green Glade Groove" 4:11

I'm thankful that Donkey Kong featured so prominently in The Super Mario Bros. Movie, because it's been a bountiful blast o' bananas putting some shine on DK music as part of April's Mario Month that's now stretching into May. And just as we've had artists make more than one appearance, it's time for a source tune to pull off its own representational twin magic! Rockos just had his own DnB spin on this theme posted -- TSori told me "Rockos' version is a banger. I like it a lot." -- so it's time to once again journey to the Jungle Kingdom's "Forest Interlude", as TSori & pals channel two legends, fusing the music of David Wise with the style of Herb Alpert's 1979 post-disco hit "Rise"!

"Credits:
Arrangement, trumpet: TSori
Piano: Xander (ZeldaRocks)
Piano, keyboard, tambourine: dpMusicman
Guitar: Siolfor the Jackal
Marimba: MarimbaMatt
Drums: Kenny Jr.
Claps: Evan Carville
Bass, mixing, mastering: myuik"

Like ErichWK from our previous ReMix, it's always a wonderful thing to debut more talented performers into OCR's lineup by way of collaborative champions like TSori, who explained to us how the pieces fell in place:

"I'm back again with another ReMix for your consideration. This time I thought I'd try to find a new approach for a well-tread fan favorite.

This ReMix marks of the end of what was a solid 10-month hiatus from any music activities for me. Life just got too busy as it has a way of doing. However, when the announcement came up for the Soundole Chillout Cover Contest this year, it seemed like the perfect excuse to get back to making music again. The last few projects I had done before the hiatus had been sort of dark, flowing lyrical solos or sort of ambient jazz tunes, and, while those certainly fit the definition of "chill", I was ready to do something different.

"Forest Interlude" has been on my to do list for a while. I love how beautiful and haunting that tune is, but it also kind of falls into that same flowing/ambient sort of category... at least in its original form. So that got me thinking of what else I could do with it that was "chill" but not in an obvious sense. I remembered my dad had once suggested that I do a cover of Herb Alpert's "Rise", and suddenly the ideas merged and I was hearing "Forest Interlude" over top of a jazzed up version of its characteristic ostinato and a funky bass beat. This is one of those arrangements that pretty much wrote itself (love it when that happens). I finally have a new version ready. It has new drums, new piano recordings, and a revisited mix/master.

Once again, I'm joined by an outstanding band of collaborators. I could write paragraphs about how great all of these guys are. They're each fantastic musicians and a pleasure to work with. I'm really looking forward to working with each of them again. I need to give a special shoutout to myuik who really went the extra mile to make sure this mix was done fast and done well.

So, with no further ado, I hope you enjoy our "Green Glade Groove"!"

I'm diggin' it, and am genuinely looking forward to meeting TSori once he moves over to my area of the U.S. later this month, so I can shake his hand in person and thank him for amazing team-up tracks like this! You can put judge Chimpazilla down for enjoying this ReMix too; everything about this one gets your body movin' and sounds groovin' compared to its mainstream inspiration:

"This is funky and cool and I'm chair dancing to it. Herb Alpert - Rise comes through instantly with the bassline and trumpet lines. This mix captures that late 70s funk/disco vibe well."

I was born a few years after "Rise" dropped, and -- shockingly, I know -- had never heard it before TSori's sub here, so of course, once you hear it, you recognize the bassline & guitar P. Diddy sampled & beefed up for "Hypnotize". :-) None of Randy Alpert & Andy Armer's composition is directly used here, yet I would have loved the production on the guitars to match "Rise" more closely (because it's such a great tone). That being said, it makes sense that Logan -- a trumpeting fiend -- would gravitate to the tone and energy of that lead, along with the corresponding groove inspired by "Rise". In his NO vote on the initial submission, DarkSim cited some other funky resemblances worth exploring:

"Never heard Forest Interlude done like this before! Right out of the gate I'm getting Bill Withers' "Lovely Day" vibes from that bass, then later on I'm thinking more "Get Lucky" by Daft Punk."

Logan actually tightened this up after we shared the judges votes with him, particularly with spicing up some plodding part-writing, smoothing out looser timing, adjusting the mixing, and undoing a flat ending, so most, if not all, of the judges criticisms no longer apply to what you hear now. In fact, you could consider this another "ultimate" version of a ReMix not unlike the one posted before. ;-)

For a hall-of-famer like DKC2 composer David Wise -- who's a hell of a performer himself, we know firsthand -- we can't help but be excited at the prospect of how he'll react to this one! Whether you're chair dancing like Chimpa or marching down the beach like Herb Alpert & friends, the groove is indeed strong with this one! We hope you get a kick of out both creative ways this theme was interpreted for Mario Month; much love to both Rockos and TSori & crew for illustrating how there's more than one way to navigate an arrangement and put your stamp on a beloved piece of VGM!