Invaders of the Lost Tomb "Illuminated Dystopia" 4:22

Commodore 64 goodness from 7DD9, who somehow channeled two Harrison Ford movies... 7DD9 applies Blade Runner's musical style to the quasi-Indiana Jones-inspired Invaders of the Lost Tomb! More commonly known in Europe as Scarabaeus, this game's music clearly captured the ReMixer's imagination way back when:

"Scarabaeus, known in America as Invaders of the Lost Tomb, is a computer game released for the Commodore 64 in 1985. It was written in Hungary by Andromeda Software and distributed in the UK by Ariolasoft.

This remix is about exploring Dr. Eldon Tyrell's pyramid in the Blade Runner universe.

Vintage synths have taken over to create the proper atmosphere and mood for the listener.

My love for this type of creation is strong as an old-school guy and as a Blade Runner and Vangelis fan, of course.

I remember, when I was a kid, I would wake up in the morning and run to put the cassette to load the game and listen to its music for hours.

...So Rick Deckard this time meets the Scarabaeus astronaut..."

I'll never get tired of 7DD9 invoking Blade Runner, I welcome him channeling that style all day, every day! Panelist paradiddlesjosh also introduced me to a lovely marimba piece via his extremely apt comparison:

"Easy to make the Blade Runner/Vangelis connections on this one. I'm reminded of "Island Spinning" by Rich O'Meara (yes, this is a percussion ensemble piece and yes, it's notably missing lots of synth elements) thanks to the polymeter and the idea of lots of elements -- even the melody line -- orbiting one ostinato for the duration. There's also something fun about the additional samples (the gong, the water droplet) as transitional elements, like some sonic easter eggs.

In the broad strokes, this track feels repetitive -- once that three-note ostinato from 0:09-0:36 returns at 0:55, it trucks through until the outro at 4:12. Having said that, there's an appreciable amount of filter movement and unless I'm mistaken, I can hear notable pitch shifts in this ostinato. [...]

If anything, this arrangement's fairly conservative, particularly regarding the presentation of the melody line. But the intro, the no-arp segment, the filtering on the arp, and the key shift at 2:49 are, I feel, enough personalization to put this over the bar."

I couldn't have said it better than Josh, who noted the arrangement's perceived repetition but rightly caught onto 7DD9's sound design work giving his treatment more than enough movement and personality to meet OCR's standards. Fellow judge Hemophiliac also showed love to the telltale sound palette:

"Absolutely feels like a modern Blade Runner/Vangelis piece. Suspenseful, dark, spacy, and future-retro. With contemporary production because everything is mixed forward and huge. Sounds are analog and throwback, super rad."

I loved the throwback sounds and repeating patterns; makes this quite a fascinating mood piece here! Particularly meaningful for a Greek musician in 7DD9 having the childhood connection to this theme and later having the vision of fleshing out the theme in the style of a legendary Greek musician. Fun fact: it surprisingly remains a mystery who on this game's development team actually created the music. In another universe, maybe Vangelis himself moonlighted as a C64 composer; at the very least, 7DD9's synth-laden send-up of Vangelis's style was a perfect fit for the mysterious hunt for the Scarabaeus!