Super Paper Mario "Flipside Part L: The Jester and The Void" 8:24

Mario with prog rock influences? Didn't we juuuuust do that? It's déjà vu out the wazoo, WAHOO! Whereas minusworld was inspired by a party game, Lucas Guimaraes & friends went the RPG route with a wild and wacky sendup of Super Paper Mario to fulfill a childhood dream!

• Lucas Guimaraes - arrangement, bass clarinet, alto/tenor/bari saxophone, voice (I'm literally all the voices you hear, we ran out of time), couple of instruments additionally programmed, aligning brass/vocals
• Brandon L. Harnish - orchestrating + additional arrangement, brass (many, I forget and don't feel like opening the rendering file), intro bells
• Sly Man - mix & master, bass, drums, additional guitars
• TheManPF - rhythm & lead guitar
• jnWake - synths, organ, piano
• Chromatic Apparatus - cello

With a ton of collaborators in tow and this being more than a decade and half in his mind, Lucas had tons to share on both the progressive inspiration AND the subsequent sprint of creation:

"This track is absolutely unhinged and I do not apologize.

Alright, I'm finally subbing this to OCR. First, let me get the most shocking thing out of the way: All the recording and production? Yeah. That was all in a week. Time management to the max, ba-by. [...] This was certainly a crunch. The story I went with this track parallels Dream Theater's Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory. Why? Scenes from a Memory is all about a love story, specifically, a bizarre love triangle, and Super Paper Mario also kind of represents that. I refuse to spoil it but, hey, there's a Super Paper Mario Wikipedia page.

So, initially for the 20th anniversary on DoD, I was going to phone in a Mario RPG cover and my second main was going to be with JohnStacy. John had to drop out, thus I only had my main to focus on for DoD. I decided, instead of phoning it in with one of the first seven Mario RPGs, that I'd do something I've had on my bucket list forever: Cover one of the first 7 Mario RPGs final boss themes (Super Mario RPG, the first three Paper Mario games, and the first three Mario & Luigi games). I knew that there'd be few better excuses than DoD's 20th anniversary month.

The arrangement is mostly "The Ultimate Show". Original sections are mostly original. The big rock ending is very Disney-esque inspired + my rock influences. Other than that, it's mostly just "The Ultimate Show" mixed with a few original parts. Also a looot of variations on "The Ultimate Show". The influences in genre range all across the board, but I was keeping it prog metal while throwing in other stuff (a march, waltz, surf rock, Knower, etc.)

First, there's me. I had to get over my fear of doing this track and I had a ton of other things going on too. I knew pulling this off would be a beast. I was listening to Metropolis, Dream Theater, and other classics like crazy. I also spent a TON of time messing around with the original source material. There's also how much I pushed my sax recording (I had VERY little windows open), additional programming (including SWAM for the bass clarinet and background parts), doing ALL the vocals, and aligning the brass/vocals. There was... a lot. By the time I had something ready, I was overwhelmed. I wasn't super confident about the arrangement either, partially from burnout, partially from feeling nervous to cover this track.

That's where Brandon L. Harnish came in. He knew I was going through a lot trying to polish up the arrangement, so he went through the work of reorchestrating a bunch of stuff to work better and have a more clear direction. I always love working with him because, I swear, I always learn something. I can't state how instrumental everyone was to making this track work, but Brandon and Sly were definitely the trio of chaos with me for it. He recorded so much damn brass to get stuff to work and for like the whole weekend straight was dropping parts. He also helped sell that intro when I honestly had no idea what I wanted for it.

TheManPF came swinging when he reminded us (Brandon and I were still wanting to do more edits), "Hey, we have like, a week to record". And he delivered. I honestly think PF's best guitar solo is there. The drop at 2:20 is mad nuts and if there's one part I suggest people relisten to the most, it's that.

jnWake CAME BACK FROM VACATION and still finished his DoD alt, his main, and ALL the keys recording for this. If anyone drew the short end of the stick for difficulty, it's him. He had two solos to do (one not written, the other being the ragtime, which is mostly unedited) AND two hard parts on keys. (One at around 2 minutes in and another around 3.)

We needed a string section towards the end and none of us had time to program it. Our initial plan was a much larger string section, but Chromatic Apparatus just recorded a bunch of different takes (that all own) of the string section. I gave him the MIDI and he came back in like... 2 hours with 16 stems, LOL.

And of course, Sly Man. The MVP of this track who brought all of this insanity home. Give it up for him FRIGGIN' RECOVERING FROM HIS SURGERY and still managed to do more than I asked. As he can attest, I was trying to see if he wanted me to bring anyone else in after he was recovering. But he just went at it, and it shows. Sly's additional guitar at 5:43 owns, his bass owns, so much of it owns. If it hadn't been for him, we'd have a botched execution.

Ultimately, I wrote this arrangement for me. I knew going in it wouldn't be licensable (I usually keep it to licensable tunes, LOL), but this one was purely for me. Then, with how invested my collaborators were, it became for them and me. Then, with how much DoD enjoyed it, it's also for them. How much this arrangement was a happy accident into the DoD's spirit just happened to work out well. I'm proud of what we made (33rd place, ah well), I had a blast, and I'm pumped to revisit this track. Thank you to all of my collaborators for making a bucket list arrangement possible. Oh, and I guess if you see another Mario RPG final boss theme submitted to OCR, you'll know who did it, LOL. I adore those games. Absolutely adore 'em. Who knows, maybe it won't be that long from now.

I hope you all get something out of experiencing this 8:23-long unhinged insanity.

P.S. If you're ever wondering what this sounds like with the Super Mario 64 soundfont, we answered that in the alts."

Props to everyone pulling this together so quickly, and respect for Guimaraes crossing an item off the bucket list! (You only get one go at life, folks, best not to leave it with regrets! Musicians, that means get those dormant ideas out of your voice memos and dust those old WIPs off!) Judge Hemophiliac praised Lucas's focus on establishing the source before letting the interpretation unwind:

"Nice to [...] stay close to the source with some of your own genre adaption to start, and then slowly start bringing in more departures and *unhinged madness*. Even when you do start to depart during 1:52-2:20 it still feels anchored to the original because of the similar figure being played.

3:14 was a sudden transition to a new section that has a completely different, whimsical feeling. [...]

Mix is pretty good, with many elements working very well together and not overpowering each other. Bass and kick lock in pretty well at times and even though they are unison (sometimes) I can still hear the high beater sound on the kick. Good job adapting the original source and keeping it crazy but still grounded at the end of the day."

Fellow judge Chimpazilla also had the nostalgia factor in play, allowing her to further appreciate Lucas's vision and variations:

"I remember this game so well, as my son and I played through it together many years ago. It has some great source tunes!

Interesting arrangement, "unhinged" is a good way to describe it, it's all over the place! [...] The performances are stellar, mixing and mastering work well. Wow, what a strange combination of energies here! The arrangement is unique and interesting all the way through, full of surprises and instrument/genre variations. The vocal work near the end is cool [...]. Music box faux ending! Then a big bombastic real outro. Nice.

Overall, this arrangement is well executed for what it is, and I like it."

The real unhinged insanity may just be the track's runtime paired with the length of the submissions comments. :-D Of course, anything inspired by Dream Theater of all bands invites lengthy EVERYTHANG, so if you're ready for an extended ride on the flipside, Lucas and crew have got the ultimate Super Paper Mario show for you!