ReMix:Horizon Zero Dawn "The Edgerunner with Blazing Hair" 3:55

Treyt debuts more modern games on OCR, bouncing from the indie hit Micro Mages now to the AAA hit Horizon franchise! Here, Trevor reshapes the cinematic style of Aloy's vocal themes from Zero Dawn & Forbidden West into a dark, electronic banger... with a touch of brightness? Give us an explanation, Treyt:

"Both official renditions of her theme have a lot of whimsical movement in them that doesn't lend toward an identifiable musical theme but more of a feeling/vibe, and the composer ties it all together with the recurring melody. I went a sort of similar path in a different genre, but leaned hard into combining the identifiable melody with the pacing and sound design of the dark club style Cyberpunk 2077 popularized, while staying true to my own personal tastes in energy and erring on the side of uplifting mystery and intensity/action to better represent Aloy's curious, confrontational, and optimistic nature over the genre's typical dark and oppressive vibes. I chose to include in-game samples from HZD's "Longleg" enemy machine, as their extended screeches fit the genre and arrangement nicely."

Though judge DarkSim also wanted a lil' lift in the volume level, Treyt's rendition was forceful and spirited, including surprising moments of beauty:

"Aloy's theme is very fitting [...], a powerful and emotive piece, and the female vocal melody that doesn't use words helps to give it a timeless, tribal feel. Anyway, enough about the source, on to the remix...

Source melody is presented immediately, with some tranquil bells, and there's a hint of what's to come with the robotic synth filtering in, and pulsating bass. 0:20 cements the cyberpunk/dark synthwave vibe, and I gotta say, I love the synth choices and the mixing is pretty clean [...]. Melody is handled by a different synth, then there's a break with the B section, and a huge build to some monstrous synth work at 1:30. Like a bunch of teenagers broke into a Cauldron and drank some Thunderjaw blood.

The break at 1:56 is a welcome one, again with some cool sound design. The glitchy Tallneck effects are a nice touch, and handled just well enough so that they sound slightly uncomfortable, but not so much that the high frequencies are piercing my ear drums. There's another build and then a really nice distorted arp at 2:50 that leads into the final chorus. We finish with the same instrumentation as the intro to bookend the track, and some beautiful reverb.

Throughout the track we're treated to some gorgeous sound design, from those soft, sweet bells to that snarling arp and screeching machine SFX. [...] Fantastic stuff, and great to see Horizon games getting some love here on OCR!"

It's too bad "ear candy" isn't a scientific music term, otherwise we'd start a tag for it and apply it to pieces like this! Treyt truly took the melody and rode the concept, developing lots of strong, varied ways of presenting it, with strong dynamic contrast throughout the arrangement thanks to a heaping helping o' fancy effects. Like prophetik music did in his vote, judge Chimpazilla raved over the effectiveness of the mellow intro immediately followed by sudden intensity:

"WOW what a track, starts out gentle and then shows its teeth hard, with all of the distortion and bitcrushing, all while a gorgeous glassy synth plays the melody. I love this arrangement. [...] I really love all the delicate bell tones and softness, contrasted with some of the heaviest EDM sounds possible. This one melts my face!"

Definitely stay alert out there! We'd hate for you to get your face melted by "The Edgerunner with Blazing Hair"... or would we? ;-)