Animal Well "Nightmare Glasses" 3:10

Time for more Hudak musical R&D! We're going indie with Michael Hudak's loud, bold, found-sound-laden rendition of two themes from Billy Basso's labyrinthine one-man game Animal Well!

"I wanted this remix to be as if the listener were in the environment. It was an experiment in creating different lived-in spaces with a lot of different reverbs, some used as sends and others as inserts, oftentimes layered into the same instrument or mix bus. Animal Well takes place in what's basically an enormous cave with dozens and dozens of rooms, so I thought it made sense to make it sound cave-like from a thematic standpoint (and even if it didn't, I guess that would be fine too, now that I think about it... doing a remix in this style from another type of game could be fun to try).

Overall, it's similar to what I did on the GoldenEye mix I made, but here I took things a step further in terms of telling a story, because I tried to recreate moments from the Animal Well game itself, down to "defeating" the Manticore with fireworks, and inserting a lot of animal sounds (that aren't from the game - I recorded/made them) into the quieter rooms of the cave/well. The Flames/save room theme has some very close sounds (as do moments of the driving percussion earlier on) panned close to the ear, to kind of simulate moving through an area. I've used this kind of "technique" before on OCR, definitely on the Tiberian Sun mix, and a few others as well. I do 95% of my arranging and mixing with over-ear headphones; maybe my obsession with near and far sounds wouldn't be what it is if I had my old studio monitors and mixed in a treated room.

Source usage:

0:26-1:43 and 1:54-2:19 in remix is from "MANTICORE" (essentially the final boss music). The quieter middle sections use the same riff and chord progression, but in half-time.

2:26-3:00 in remix is from "FLAMES" (essentially the rest area/save music).

Thanks for listening, as always."

Judge prophetik music strongly put over Hudak's killer sound design chops:

"these originals sound bonkers, so strap in, i guess.

opens with washing-machine sounds and string stabs that resolves into a found-music beat pattern. the 'lead' instrument here is super interesting - i love the timbral variations over time, particularly the squawking, distorted edge on the tone. the original's maj7 jump is immediately recognizable, and the little variations like the 'miss' at 0:45 are a nice touch.

0:54 switches to a much more broad feel, almost like a hand-pan and pads, with a lot of outside fx and nicely handled bird sfx. i like the verb on these as it does indeed make it sound like a cave, it's surprisingly nuanced. and making a melodic, calming progression out of the nonsense that is MANTICORE is impressive. the same beat as the beginning comes back around 1:15 and starts to fade in [...] and there's some washes of color to make it progressively more creepy.

the beat comes closer and closer until at 1:55 the original progression is back in our face with the original evil duck synth. we do get some variations to the beat pattern which is nice, and then the fireworks which apparently are a story element. 2:28 brings in FLAMES and includes a lot of additional sfx here as well. it progresses through that a bit before a sudden, harsh fall-off, and it's done.

well, it's a ride, all right. the arrangement is just what i expected given the artist - a surprisingly clever and nuanced approach to a track nobody was going to listen to twice - and it features a ton of fun sound design and interesting, unique little bits to keep it special. the work on reverbs especially is particularly impressive."

Fellow judge pixelseph, confronted with dark & scary moods here, chose to swim in the darkness:

"This is such a deeply unsettling take on these sources and I'm here for it. Reminds me of a musique concrète approach that just works. The metallic flanging in the right ear around :27 might be the creepiest part of that opening section, inclusive of all the percussion elements, and the gentle turnaround @ :54 adds a nice contrast to the intro.

Great use of source, the production is a full-send Hudak experience; literally can't do anything but vote YES"

With Michael, you learn to trust the process. It's intriguing and immersive sound design per his usual, that's a no-brainer. Michael got excellent mileage out of Basso's minimal themes; how he sonically beefed them up AND built around them with original writing ideas was indeed impressive. He's the epitome of sophisticated, thoughtful audio experimentation, one of the scene's best-kept secrets. When's someone going to let Hudak be sonic unleashed on a game soundtrack? He'd attack any creative project like a wild animal. Well, we're waiting! ;-)