The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker "Valoo's Big Gay Dance" 4:51

We're movin', shakin', and groovin' with Valoo thanks to Vodoú! The Vodoú Queen brings an amazingly experimental level of danceability to Zelda: Wind Waker's "Dragon Roost Island" in her first featured ReMix of a Zelda game! This was originally made for Pixel Mixers' recent Wind Waker tribute album, but since pesky copyright hounds are less permissive on using in-game SFX & clips, we're getting the purest undistilled Vodoú, as she explains:

"*Finally*, a Zelda arrangement in my grasp! MWAHAHAHA!!!

Ahem, *evil C H A O S-filled cackles* aside, welcome to my take on "Dragon Roost Island"! Done for Pixel Mixers' Wind Waker: Songs of the Great Sea album. It was an absolute blast, pleasure, and I feel very lucky and grateful to have been able to snag the opportunity at such a popular track. It's definitely one of my top 10 favorites in the entire Zelda franchise/library, starting all the way from Gen 1 - the NES, and I certainly *did not* hesitate to put my all forth on this one.

I still remember to this day the wondrous joy I got out of encroaching upon the land of Dragon Roost for the first time as a teen playing Wind Waker on release. (Damn, I feel old, LOL.) Those castanets... that Spanish flamenco guitar, that calypso island, con brio beat. For years and to this day, no matter the medium, the context, or the remix this track has undergone, it still fills me with that excited whimsy and odd... happy sensation of FINALLY finding land after aimlessly sailing across the vast Great Ocean for hours on end, and getting to explore! I don't know why this song in particular hit me like it did (most of the WW OST did, TBH, with how flavorful, colorful, rich and full of expression all the tracks were), but I *seriously* got hooked when -- about *9 years after* Wind Waker's release -- I stumbled onto an outstanding EDM artist called Ephixa, who did a couple of dubstep Zelda remixes, and those songs were a BIG influence and impetus on me wanting to tackle some of the same iconic Zelda tracks, years later.

I'm not entirely sure HOW to describe the process and making of this remix, as it all kinda came through in a blur. (I've been on an incredibly weird high and tizzy with a veritable hill of VG remixes for albums to conquer, lately, and with all that comes a lot of emotional peaks and valleys and moments of doubt and procrastination and banging my head against the proverbial wall to "make it before I break it [me]"... so... it's kinda hard ATM to string a coherent thought on that said process, when it's a lot more about *feeling it* sometimes than *strategic planning* -- even though every mix I do has a fair share of plotting things out, as well.) As an old, not-born-in, but-raised-in Floridian resident myself, it's like being in a hurricane on the beachfront (and it's a WILD experience, let me tell you!). Not being fully musically-trained in the theoretical sense makes... writing it all down, laced in the jargon and the gear and the FX and the programming - for those music science nerd-out-types - all the more difficult and a struggle, haha. But, the major thing I was assured of in making this remix was that I wanted to **strengthen my EDM game**. The *only* clear voice in my head the whole time was: "make your mark on this, sweetheart <3."

And I hope I did, as I do with all my mixes to date.

This version of the track I had mastered myself, due to it being slightly different from the Pixel Mixers' version. Major reason behind it being they couldn't use my original cut that had the actual voice and SFX clips from Wind Waker, because of possible licensing issues that might occur from using in-game FX. So I had to find replacement foley that were close enough to those sounds (like through freesound.org or other places that were attribution-free/Creative Commons) and use those for the PM version instead. For the OCR version, I wanted to put those sounds I had to replace back in, so I did that and meshed them with the replacement foley -- but that also meant I'd have to do the mastering myself. :) So yeah, the version y'all have is fully comp'd, arranged, mixed and mastered by yours truly. <3

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the wide variety of artist takes on "DRI", both on here in OCR, and in the wider realms on Spotify, YouTube, SoundCloud, etc. I know most of them seem to take the form of orchestral/acoustic, or EDM, but I tried my best to make this one a *unique and different* spin. Is it jungle? Maybe a lil', mostly drum n' bass-centric... Is it tropical house? Well, it's got a very Polynesian-infused sauce, with various garnishes and spices borrowed from house, dubstep, and trance... I don't know... but I'm sure Mr. Hemo or Mr. Liontamer will label this one another host to the "experimental"... ;)

Once again, I don't know what to call my work, or what to label it as, or how to espouse on "how I did it all" with the fancy words and theory techniques and the music sheets, but ***its roots run deep***, and I hope people listening to it find it to be that same, equal, captivating, and explorative feel (and a banger), with that same level of wonder and awe I felt back in 2003 upon reaching the shores of the place that is known as Dragon Roost Island. :)"

Nice choice going for an extended build-up to start; great beach/water SFX, then the gradual fade-in of the source elements. Very engaging and intriguing sounds in the first 45 seconds to hook ya. "Tropical house" sounds plausible, but I'm no music theorist or academic either, I'm just a VGM fan with two ears and an open mind. As with everything VQ heads up, there's no box to stick this in, no lines neatly colored in, and that's not a bug, that's a feature! Judge jnWake carries us through with an in-depth play-by-play of The Vodoú Queen sound designing her way to fame:

"Starts with some beach/ocean SFX and musical elements get added around 0:19, which I believe correspond to the first flute lines from the source (before the iconic melodies!). Some voice samples from the game are layered in as we continue on a slow electronic vibe until a break at 0:57. There's a build-up here with the main Dragon Roost melody playing on a crystal-ish synth while more SFX plays on top. Around 1:17 it settles on a beat for a short bit and at 1:35 it introduces a different one. There's also a neat harp and finally at 1:57 the main melody takes the spotlight. [...] At 2:17 the melody ends and we continue for a bit with the backing and the 0:19 melody getting the spotlight for a bit before the main melody repeats. Soundscape here is very busy, there's A LOT going on but, somehow, most things seem easy to hear. [...] 3:03 introduces a bit of much needed "peace" (relative to the earlier section) but then 3:24 actually delivers on a calm moment featuring the B section from the source. More layers come in and a wild transition moves us back into the 2:17 harp, which gets a cool detune effect as a transition around 4:05. There's another instance of the main melody taking the spotlight and then the track ends with the beach/ocean SFX from the intro.

Arrangement is wild, there's plenty of different interpretations of the source and different electronic dance-ish moods in here. Generally the transitions are cool with a lot of fun sound design ideas. [...]

On production this is quite interesting, the sound design elements are quite well done with a lot of fun SFX usage and other techniques to create cool transitions (like the ones at 3:53 and 4:08). [...]

Overall, very interesting piece! Arrangement is wild and fun and the production [...] does a good job of supporting the craziness with cool effects and transitions."

So many interesting elements gluing this dragon dance together, Wake even admitted he was also overwhelmed! Meanwhile, this washed over me like an ocean wave. :-) Fellow judge prophetik music needed some repeat plays to acclimate to the climate on Dragon Roost Island, but he got there in time:

"there's some really cool concepts here. [...] a lot of the overall timbres you arrive at are really interesting and have tons of interesting stuff to say when you stay there for more than a few seconds. [...] i think what's here is an interesting and transformative arrangement [...] i will admit it took a few listens to get there for me."

I've had so many instances as a judge where something's difficult for me to wrap my head around or I'm more in arrangement timestamping mode or interpretation analysis mode, and it's only when we post something that I step back to appreciate the big picture, so I feel where proph's coming from. In this particular case, I had the 30,000-foot view to begin with, and I really dig how everything pulls together here. VQ mapped out a strong structure, the hyperactive textures had room to breath, there were constantly effective moments of contrast, and the writing didn't veer off into anything distracting from the overall direction. I making a note here: huge success from The Vodoú Queen in making her mark on this theme. What genre do we call it? I dunno either. :-P Very stylish!