ReMix:Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun "Sentinel" 5:38

The Command & Conquer series' music has been a fan favorite for nearly 30 years, with the franchise's founding composer Frank Klepacki still melting faces to this day! Klepacki was busy this month as he, video artist FoxxDragon and C&C tribute band The Tiberian Sons (which includes ReMixers Prince uf Darkness & Wild_Cat) performed at this year's Game Access Conference in Brno, Czech Republic! To keep the C&C love flowing, British arranger Artificial Eye (Fraser Jennison) debuts with his dark & deliberate electronic expansion of C&C: Tiberian Sun's "Lone Trooper", originally by Jarrid Mendelson!

The bass, bass, BASS was a big highlight here, both in the writing and how it's produced, with a nice, dense tone! Even in the intro until 1:35, when the soundscape was the most open, there's also good, subtle, yet notable, sound design stuff going on with phasing synth lines moving around the stereo field and computerized SFX swirling about.

While there were cohesion critiques on the mixing of the choir vox padding and other elements, the majority of the judges panel were on board, with judge Gario summing up how Artificial Eye kept his eye on the ball, giving his take a meaningfully different sound and a sufficiently developed build that justifies the journey:

"Pretty straightforward arrangement - in a lot of places it sounds like a sound upgrade, even - but there's definitely enough expansion on the source to make it your own thing. I like the overall soundscape on this for the most part[...] One nice thing that this track does is it keeps the soundscape interesting; while the arrangement is straightforward it never remains too static in the soundscape so there's always at least something fresh to keep my attention with. Nice work on that. [...]

I've got a lot of nitpicks and retreaded ground, but that doesn't cover what this track brings to the table: an atmospheric, chill track that ramps up it's groove into a nice thumpin' beat. The drums (after 3:30) sound pretty great, and that bassline throughout is chunky and nice."

Some judges, including djpretzel himself, noted the escalation at 2:46 as the track's ultimate turning point for engagement, so, as a listener, it's a must to give this piece proper time to open up and respect the process of the gradual build to appreciate the full experience. As judge Emunator offered to Artificial Eye in praise, "You got where you needed to go eventually. ;-)" The subtle dynamics are baked into Jarrid Mendelson's original, so that should no surprise at all if you're familiar with the Tiberian Sun source material; let this simmer, let this cook!

It would have been a shame if Michael Hudak's suspenseful version were the sole arrangement here of a quality track like "Lone Trooper", so props to Artificial Eye for having equally good taste and ensuring this PC classic is no longer lonely in terms of OCR representation. :-) Stay vigilant out there, sentinels!