ReMix:Castlevania II: Simon's Quest "In My Mother's Name" 3:44

For every man and woman and child, Happy Mother's Day! We try to never let a good holiday occasion go to waste, so we've got an absolutely perfect ReMix to celebrate the mommies today... Castlevania?!? But "It's a trap!" you yell! OK, it's actually trap MUSIC, as newcomer Blujak arrives with BARS in his rap tribute to Alucard's mother, Lisa. Blujak walks us through how he wound up arranging Castlevania II, paying homage to Warren Ellis's Castlevania animated series:

"I would like to submit my song, a cover/remix of the theme "Bloody Tears" from Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest, to OC ReMix. [...] My ReMixer name is Blujak. So far, this is actually the first VG theme remix I've done. I plan on doing more in the future... The name of my remix is "In My Mother's Name". I wrote, recorded, mixed, and mastered this track.

I've been a HUGE fan of the Castlevania franchise since I was a kid. Grew up playing the series, and decided to put together my own interpretation of the classic "Bloody Tears" theme from Simon's Quest after I watched the Netflix anime for the umpteenth time. In my own version and spin, however, I wanted to add a few more elements to the mix such as vocals/lyrics I wrote - I basically wanted to tell the story of Alucard from his perspective; delving into the duality of his persona of being the son of Dracula, who wished vengeance on humanity, but also being the son of Lisa, who wished for him to protect humanity (as in SotN), as he wrestles with his own identity. I imagine he'd wrestle with the duality of honoring his mother's dying words of being peaceful towards the humans/protecting them as seen in Danesti at Dracula's castle vs. avenging her death à la his father. I've always thought his story arc is fascinating, which is essentially the nexus of my remix; in the animated series, Greta beseeches him to protect the people of Danesti in his "father's house", hence one of the lines in the song and, as he swears to his father at the final confrontation at the end of SotN, he will protect them "in his mother's name."

Let me know what you think! CANNOT wait for the new Richter season..."

After a classy extended intro, we transition into the clap beats at :42, DAT BASS at :56, plus those lil' hat ticks... we're getting ALLLLL the trap trappings. :-) Judge prophetik music doesn't know much about trap (hey, we can't know *every* genre well), yet he knows quality when he hears it:

"i am 37 years old and i just realized today that alucard is dracula backwards. i always thought the name was just dumb-sounding.

intro has the iconic arpeggio and lead melodic content in piano initially, then layers in orchestral elements and vocals. this does some stuff until we get some trap snares and it gets cooking. 0:56 is where the vocals really come in. i think this sounds pretty good here honestly, but this is easily the genre i know the least about. the flow sounds good and the chorus being doubled up an octave is a great idea. i particularly liked the constant vox sfx were a positive. 2:25 was pretty impressive as well.

3:02 is the start of the outro. the final beat drops out at 3:17, and there's some piano and strings to ride to the finish. final sustain was a touch short.

this was not what i expected based on the writeup or intro, but it honestly sounds awesome. the beat is solid and i really liked the technical ability showcased both in your vocals and in the sfx applied to vocal clips throughout."

Thanks to prophetik for effectively itemizing several great traits found in our ReMixes, especially helpful in a case like Blujak's where we don't have much trap. It's such a little detail, so the insight pales in comparison to proph's notes, but the vox line at :41 that padded the intro was SUCH a nice piece of business, a subtle element that separates a dry track from one that's properly filled out. On the vocal side too, Blujak's delivery was massively on point. Eminem's already proven you don't need multitudes of melanin to skillfully drop verses, so Blujak earned a jewel-encrusted accolade from judge Emunator:

"This is a banger. Your voice and flow reminds me a LOT of El-P. From a pure technical perspective, this is some of the best rapping I've heard in a hot minute on the panel. The pop-punk vocals add a very fresh, modern flair, I really wasn't expecting that but especially on repeat listens, I enjoyed it. There's a lot to love about this arrangement, and there was a lot of care put into making sure that both the beat and the vocal performance is dynamic and cohesive, never feeling like you just dropped some unrelated bars over a beat that happened to sample Castlevania. The extra effort goes a long way. [...] Good stuff!!"

Echoing Emu's approval for Blujak, there was LOTS of excellent variation in the cadence, flow, and effects with his vocal delivery. Sometimes the lyrics followed the source and would double the instrumentation, oftentimes it was doing it's own thing; you can never peg what role the vocals would fill in the texture, which keeps things interesting as the track unfolds. The arrangement as a whole does a tremendous job of adapting the source to this genre; this has strong textural variations, creative & fitting lyrics, and BIG energy throughout. Great debut, Blujak, and I love that you have more VGM arrangements planned for the future; definitely keep 'em coming! :-)