ReMix:Parasite Eve "Charred and Cauterized" 4:00

Hold the phone, we're not done posting ReMixes today! /glass shatters - My gawd, it's the rattlesnake! Hemo! Hemo! Hemo! He's stompin' a mudhole and walkin' it dry! For 3:16 Day, gotta show love to #workshop moderator, pro wrestling fan, and all-around community champion Hemophiliac together with Aussie axe assassin Siolfor the Jackal for their moody metal collaboration on a pair of Parasite Eve themes! Siolfor's been hanging out with us at the OCR Discord for the better part of a year now, and we've all had a great time chopping it up, so he explains how that translated into tag-teaming on this pessimistic, parasitic piece:

"We'd been hanging out on voice chat in the OCR Discord a lot recently, so I've been getting to know Hemophiliac and Liontamer better. After talking about the current Pixel Mixers contest theme at the time (Generation 5 consoles). I remember getting a message from Hemo with a 20-second audio clip and the message "YOU IN?". Those 20 seconds sounded like a lot of fun for me, so I was.

It was really cool seeing the track develop over the month, especially in real time when Hemo would share his screen as he worked. It's always fun when someone else writes guitars for me to play, especially when they don't play themselves. Thanks for having me on the track!"

Whether it's Dwelling of Duels, Pixel Mixers, or the events right here on OCR, there's nothing like compos to get ideas percolating and facilitate team-ups and friendships amongst fellow musicians! If you're a musician wondering how to get more involved in the VGM arrangement scene, the deadlines of compos and albums are wonderful motivators. Through chatting on Discord, Hemophiliac learned about a concept Siolfor was still looking to do creatively and ultimately decided he could help out:

"Honestly can't remember the exact impetus of this one. I think Siolfor and I were on voice chat on Discord and he was mentioning something about people not writing heavy stuff for him. I probably thought to myself, "I should try that!" He also mentioned the Pixel Mixers' monthly contest was starting up and the theme was "Generation 5 consoles". I've been wanting to get involved with other VGM communities as well, so I took a shot.

So, here I am again with back-to-back submissions on Yoko Shimomura sources, I did not plan that. Also a neat coincidence that my last few tracks have all been in different time signatures (6/8, 4/4, 5/4). This one starts out in 3/4 and in the final section at the end goes into 4/4. This track was a blast to work on and I'm proud of it. I would not have thought I would be able to write in this style years ago. I'm particularly proud of the part-writing for the drums. Drums were something that I really struggled to understand, and over the years have been building up my confidence in working with them.

Siolfor really went along with everything and just kept saying to write more. I'm so grateful that he was willing to let me experiment and try things out. Thank you so much for recording the guitars and bass."

Parasite Eve's been loooooooooooooooooooooooooong overdue for some good coverage around here, so while I'll always endorse Shimomura coverage, it's particularly great to get it from Parasite Eve, which hasn't had a ReMix since the late Reuben Kee (still missed) emotively arranged it for piano too long ago. (I'm waiting for good "Out of Phase" coverage from anyone out there!) I love the story behind this particular team-up as the collaboration meant each contributor tried some fresh concepts and stretched their talents. prophetik music also had an interesting observation:

"the farther along in this opening section we get, the more i'm reminded of the very dramatic, lush style of peruvian tango music. obviously a dramatically different instrumentation throughout, but the slow 3 beat and wide instrumentation with tons of verb made me think of it."

Knowing that Hemo's around to respond to that, I can't help but wonder what his reaction will be. He does appreciate good Latin music, but it's anyone's guess how much Peruvian tango he's been exposed to. :-) In any case, even when we evaluated this on the panel, it'll appear like we felt this was shambolic; we all said we wanted this to have more zest, more mitochondria, but in retrospect we missed the forest for the trees. There's a 90s energy here I initially wasn't in tune with, a grunginess that actually feels in line with Parasite Eve's diabolic imagery (with moments of melancholy mixed in). I definitely appreciate the deliberate pacing more over time, and the arrangement gets it done, particularly with effective dynamic contrast by way of the evolving textures, as well as the "fantastic guitar and piano parts in this", according to judge DarkSim. More energy emerged in the piece once things transitioned to "Missing Perspective" at 2:35, and the shift back into the main theme back at 3:31 was an effective close-out alongside the piano. Props to Hemo and Siolfor, who fed off of the "emotionless" and "inorganic" approach of Shimomura's compositions and provided their own dark disposition to them!