The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time "House of Shadow" 6:09

Chimpa's back with another Zelda EDM banger, as Chimpazilla teams with mo.oorgan to transmogrify Zelda: Ocarina of Time's "Nocturne of Shadow"! With this being a shorter theme than most, Chimpazilla added a lot of substance to her treatment and tagged in mo.oorgan to take it home... or, should we say, "house":

"This track started as another attempt at "minimal techno". Mo and I wanted to do a minimal techno Zelda track together, and "Nocturne of Shadow" seemed like the perfect source to try. It's just a simple motif and that seemed appropriate for it. I can't seem to stay minimal though (and neither can Mo), and this quickly turned into a tech house groove. I sent Mo about four minutes of arrangement, and Mo took it to the moon and out into space, zoomed around the universe collecting more sounds, more ideas, more detail, more effects, and so much more WTF-was-that-even, until it arrived back on Earth with two more minutes added to its length and infinitely more interesting. I love collaborating with Mo! There will be many, many more after this one!"

mo.oorgan has two working theories on how this wound up the way it wound up, i.e. NOT minimal:

"We're either really bad at making minimal music, or (and I'm opting for this explanation) we're both so good at it, that it just ends up being maximalist. I don't make the rules; I just make them up. -shrug- Regardless, the second this WIP hit my inbox, I was hit with a similar wave of "producer blackout flow state" that Chimp detailed when we worked on "Besaid Island". She clearly gets my bleeding house-centric heart, and I'm always so grateful to be a part of these songs with her. All that to say, Chimp is the EDM partner-in-crime I've needed in my life, and we're gonna turn this city upside-down, and shake it down for all its worth."

That FF10 "Besaid Island" collab happened first, but fate conspired to have me hold it for another day, so you know there's more VGM EDM from the pair coming soon! Let it be said that judge prophetik music commended the two for their atmospheric expansion of "Nocturne of Shadow":

"opens with some really interesting kalimba-esque plucks on the theme before it starts getting into a minute-long build-up. kick's in at 0:23 and it's this big, boomy, housey feel. a bunch of fun build elements later, we get a stable beat at 0:54 complete with breathers and all sorts of stuff popping in and out of the texture. it's a great bed for the strange melodic material that is this original. 1:41's the first real drop, and i like the melody being down an octave as a way to visualize that.

the beat drops entirely at 2:12, and this is a much spacier exploration of atmosphere for a bit before we get back some sidechained elements again. [...] there's a bit of melodic expansion around the three minute mark before we get into another big build section. 3:45 brings back the band alongside some fun sfx additions and rhythmic expansion of the melody material.

4:30 or so is another drop, and there's more atmosphere on this one. i liked the more organic feel of this drop, and when the beat comes back it still feels pretty organic - the beat's far away, and there's a lot more sfx work than before which tended to be more pitched. there's an extended outro here that is mostly pads doing interesting swirly phased things, and it's done.

this is a lay-up, as expected. i love the expansion of such a simple but interesting original, and i love just how detailed it is throughout. excellent work."

It's a subtle thing, but I really loved the tone of the bass kicks here; perfect for this piece. On top of the rich audio filigree proph cited, he's also on point with this having a big presence and a dynamic structure, co-signed by fellow judge Hemophiliac:

"This is like mad-scientist-in-a-laboratory-on-Halloween music. Dark, trance-like, and heavy.

As expected the production is excellent and the source is well represented with plenty of mo's signature sound in between usage of source.

There's plenty of playing with time and rhythm within the source usage to make it your own [...]

Production is super clean as I would expect from anything that Chimpazilla touches. [...] Nice work!"

Nothing wrong with more Halloween music later in the year, bring it on, I say! Nice job extending the theme and letting the evolution of the textures as well as the lead & rhythmic variations provide the personalization. The wind down around 5:40 was awesome as well. Tons of fun to vibe out to. Sign me up for more like this, y'all. :-)