ReMix:Dark Souls "Dance of the Moth" 3:02

Like a moth to a flame, it's tough not to be drawn to our latest ReMix, Michael Hudak's mesmerizing march (or should we say spellbinding waltz) to battle with Dark Souls' Moonlight Butterfly. Hudak explains:

"I think the first 35 seconds of the source song is the most memorable section of music from the entire Souls series. It first plays when encountering the Moonlight Butterfly - a majestic early boss - in a dark forest (Dark Sun Gwyndolin appears later in the game, and I never even fought them in my playthrough, so I don't associate this song with that character despite the official OST title). I wanted to focus on the kind of somber aesthetic that that Moonlight Butterfly encounter has with something resembling a dark electronic waltz.

I ended up using a synth string sound that accounts for both the bass and mids, using the same chord progression as the original, just more arpeggiated in a kind of "Gothic string quartet" kind of style. No actual classic techno/EDM bass here. Close, middle, and far reverbs send effects on different instruments here, as per usual. Lots of modular synth runs sent to the far verb, something I did with my "Silent Disruptor" and "Blotto Grotto" ReMixes. Lead line is a filtered female voice, doubled with a whistle sound an octave higher to make things perhaps more ethereal. There are a lot of external LFOs here controlling all sorts of plugin parameters - modular drive rates, Q values in FabFilter, pitch shifter wet/dry - that aren't baked into the track audio, meaning every time I exported the track to WAV, it sounded a little different. This version is the one I settled on."

It's probably happened before -- hell, maybe with one of Michael's pieces -- but I can't recall an OC ReMix being made in a way where you effectively get bespoke renders, so that's a notable one! The source tune references are straightforward and, as judge MindWanderer commented, "It indeed works really well. [...] Great tone that transforms the original while keeping a lot of the same feel." That said, "Dark Sun Gwyndolin" is referenced here in segments, so Hudak was kind enough to provide a breakdown, which helps well-meaning but non-musical derps like me better understand & appreciate the arrangement:

"- I only used the first 51 seconds of the source, played through twice over, roughly. ReMix sits on the same F#m chord from 0:04 to 0:44, which is 0:00 to 0:16 in source. It then changes to C#7, then there are some chord modulations that slightly differ from the source, but the lead melody is still played overtop. 0:45 to 1:15 in ReMix = 0:18 to 0:35 in source.
- After a few back-and-forths, it sits on F#m at 1:15 to 1:44, which is 0:36 to 0:51 in the source. The whole thing from 0:29-onward repeats again starting at 1:44, and that's a wrap (until that final guitar chord that I wanted to be a little disarming).

The source tune has several other sections that I initially planned to incorporate, but I eventually decided to just focus on the drama from the driving nature of the first two sections and polish the sound design as much as possible instead of shoehorning more parts in. Short and sweet. Thanks a ton, as always."

With the source usage asked and answered, judge Chimpazilla basked in the captivating sound design here, no surprise at all from Hudak:

"I love everything Michael does and this is no exception. It feels like his musical ideas come out of a forbidden realm or dimension where crazy yet groovy angelic/demonic beings reside. I always love Michael's use of glitching, stuttering, and obliterating of sounds, coupled with softer more organic sounds. This mix is more tame than others in terms of heavy glitching. The timbres used are so interesting and the piece maintains my interest totally as it goes along. The vocal motif is super creepy and ethereal and contrasts with the more electro/industrial sounds well. Mixing is great. The outro with the glassy synth crossfading into an non-humanized musicbox-sounding guitar is a weird, perfect finale to this piece."

The unorthoodox time sig and weighty percussion certainly give this a strong sense of urgency, the buzzing brought in at :15 provides a steady current of electricity, and the vox arriving at :21 brings in Sakuraba's unsettling undercurrent from the original Dark Souls music. As judge prophetik music eloquently summarized: "this is a fascinating approach to the original. taking something that sounds so medieval and transferring it into an electronic version of a similarly old style is great juxtaposition." Will *you* be blinded by the light from the "Dance of the Moth"? :-)