ReMix:Touhou Fuujinroku: Mountain of Faith "Stuck in My Head" 3:36

You know what? I'm doing it... I've frequently said it about Star Salzman, and now I'm gonna put ad.mixx on that level; if you looking for one of the scene's best singer-songwriters, ad.mixx is GUILTY. ad.mixx once again teams up with Chimpazilla, this time grafting his great original lyrics & vocals on the music of bullet hell shooter Touhou Fuujinroku: Mountain of Faith! For such a disenchanted performance, boy, am I glad ad.mixx enjoyed it:

"This song was a fun one to work on. I had the idea while going through and listening to some old Touhou songs, and the source is actually from the same game I tried remixing a long time ago. That one got rejected, but I'm back at it again this time with singing involved.

All I did production-wise was the vocals, piano, koto, and one synth in the chorus. Chimpazilla came through with everything else and brought a beauty to the song that I never could have imagined when first working on it. She absolutely killed it with the drums and bass and added a bunch of details with chords, strings, synths, and transitions that really made this song sound 100%.

The meaning behind the song is pretty simple in my opinion - it's a breakup song. Think of something like Tyler, the Creator's "EARFQUAKE" and you pretty much get the gist of it. It hurts to break up - you feel like you lose a piece of yourself in a lot of ways, and I tried to capture that moment in time to the best of my ability, even though it was so long ago ("everything's getting so blurry").

The vocals and game actually have nothing to do with each other, like my past remixes here, but I felt super-inspired by the doujin project FELT and how they write their vocal remixes (again, having nothing to do with the games themselves). I wanted to try to transform the song into something a little prettier, much like they do, and I think Chimpazilla and I succeeded on that front.

This one was incredibly difficult to sing because the melody is so much more complex than anything I've ever done, but I hope everything is up to par with OCR standards, and I hope the judges enjoy it."

Whoa, I'm lovin' it! ALL of the judges were bowled over by it, so we can only hope all of you listeners out there will spin it too and find out why. Judge Chimpazilla actually helped on this ReMix, yet she was still bowled over by its quality, enthusiastically heaping credit where credit was due for ad.mixx:

"Aaron said "all I did production-wise", but he isn't giving himself enough credit! This remix is his source choice, his concept, his arrangement 100%, his lyrics, his vocal performance and processing, in addition to his piano, koto, pads, and FX.

Aaron sent me an initial WIP of this arrangement with his first sung verse, and I was hooked. It had such a haunting beauty already in WIP #1. I added the bassline and drums, sweepy pads, a few plucks and details, a couple of transitions, and I mixed and mastered it. Aaron and I work very well together, with our ideas complimenting each other pretty seamlessly.

This track came together rather quickly to about 90% completion and then went on hold for nearly a year due to LifeStuff™. [...]

I had never heard this source tune before Aaron sent me his WIP, and I was surprised how different his WIP was from the source in vibe and energy. One thing I love about both the source and remix is the use of triplets throughout the arrangement. Aaron was able to maintain all those triplets in his vocal writing and it gives the piece a very nice flow, I think. Aaron stayed very true to the source melody, but he added such amazing variations (such as the end of the chorus sections "and still I find I'm in love") as he crafted this arrangement, making it flow to express what he wanted to say. He even included the trucker's gearshift modulation in his arrangement! (And it is seamless!)

I can appreciate how difficult this was to sing. As Aaron mentioned, the melody is quite complex, and it covers a wide range of octaves too. I think he did a terrific job!

This is really an achingly sad song, but Aaron and I managed to put together a soundscape that is so lovely, and I feel like the beauty of the piece adds a hopeful feeling to counterbalance the intense pain in Aaron's words. It was a joy to work on this!"

Aaron's layered vocals sound awesome, and I love how comfortably the lyrics fit with the melody, something that can be easily taken for granted until you hear someone perform vocals too rigidly in time with a source melody. Meawhile, the instrumentation was lush, and the textures built up nicely in the first minute. You can tell from the artists' comments that a lot of thought, care, and sweat equity were put into this piece, an attention to detail not at all lost on judge prophetik music:

"wild original, really fun ride. [...]

the track feels like it goes by pretty quick! i think that's a byproduct of how wordy most of the lines are, and there not being an instrumental section throughout. that said, there's a lot of really fun ideas in this. as expected there's a lot of musical complexity in the original, and the way you adapted this into a vocal track is seriously impressive. i also think that ad.mixx's approach with the intentionally heavy autotuned vocals really works so well - there's a codependence between the pad-heavy backing elements, the restrained drums and bass elements, and the vocal parts, i can't imagine they'd work so well together if this was clean vocals. the master's so clean too, as expected - it sounds fantastic.

really fun track. excellent work."

As a matter of course, I've always recommended comparing ReMixes to their original source tunes so that you can have a fuller appreciation for the level of interpretation involved. If you're not prone to regularly making those comparisons, Hemophiliac made the case that you NEED to do it here:

"This is great, the vocals are given all the spotlight. Meanwhile, the supporting structure around it them are very present without over-taking the vocals. Aside from the strong vocal performance, the subtle background stuff are the highlights for me. The opening background organ, the mallet-like synth at 0:41, and the piano counterpoint at the end of the track are all so perfect and well fitting. As if they were always meant to be the way they are. Sometimes I hear arrangements that feel like major improvements on their sources, this is an example of such. It goes so many more places then the original by changing leads around and adding vocals and original lyrics. People might not be familiar with the source, but boy this will stand alone just as a good track by itself. [...]

Very strong work from the both of you Kris and Aaron."

Both of the ReMixers can indeed flex, 'cause they put in the work! Man, y'all even made a key change sound seamless and non-disappointing (hey, I can be a key change hater). I'm 100% with Hemo; the level of complexity and finesse truly took ZUN's composition to a new level here. Y'all should seriously consider doing a Touhou EP and selling it at Comiket, this would go over extremely well there. Equal parts catchy, melancholy, and thought-provoking, this is so, so cool! :-D