Donkey Kong 64 "Toyworks Terror" 4:29

Our DK hits continue: 1, 2, 3... 64??? Make it make sense! The community's had An OverClocked Christmas going on for a dog's age, but nothing for the more boo-oriented among us, so The Vodoú Queen took the initiative to launch An OverClocked Halloween this year! Here from this year's Volume I is Argle shaking off a musical bugaboo of his and finally confronting Donkey Kong 64's "Frantic Factory":

"Well, this one has some history. First, the game. DK64 is a title I have very nostalgic feels about, even though I've never completed more than half of the stages and, in all honesty, I have no interest in returning to it because it's kind of a bad game, haha. Now you may say, why have I made at least 2 remixes of a game I don't really like? The thing about it is it cast some kind of freaky spell on me. Back in 1999, the graphics looked AMAZING, and, of course, the magical soundtrack of Grant Kirkhope got its hooks in me. And, even though I find the gameplay grindy, repetitive and annoying, I think about it often! It's weird.

Second, the arrangement. I've had the general idea in my head to do since, no joke, 2007 or so. The idea has always been, a Pendulum-style drum 'n bass take on "Frantic Factory". Every 5 years or so, I give it an attempt, it falls flat because I can't get a vibe I like and I abandon it. Enter this year, Vodoú Queen pitched the idea of an unofficial Halloween album, which I thought was a GREAT idea. I enjoy getting in on the Christmas albums when I can, and I like the vibes of Halloween even more than Christmas. And, right away, I thought of this track and thought... what if the original drum 'n bass idea, but plastered full of tropey spooky & horror sounds? Just overtly a bit goofy at times. As it turns out, the Halloween album was just the thing I needed to crystallize the idea for this song. So, here we have it. Like some of the other long-abandoned tracks I've revisited this year and finished, I'm actually so glad I failed at this in the past, because this is a far better execution than I'd have gotten back then. And, in this case, I had nothing at all to build from before, it's all new stuff.

So, yeah, a track with real history for me, something I'd kinda written off ever having a shot of making."

We're always happy for artists conquering those albatross arrangements, even if it's at the expense of our collective calm, because Argle put some POWER into Grant Kirkhope's spookiness! Judge prophetik music praised the piece for swinging the pendulum from argle-bargle to attention-grabbing energy:

"opens with some sfx and some arpeggiated chords. opening lead has some nice vibrato buzz to it which i like a lot. there's an extended build with a pretty big pop at the end leading into 1:19's initial chorus, and the pendulum inspiration is really obvious right away at that point. the single snare strike as a fill at 1:43 is on every pendulum album ever.

there's a big drop at 2:05, and a downtempo section starting at 2:18 that's got a great groove - hats here have some great quant to give it a great shuffle. this entire section really is another disguised build for the chorus section at 2:52. there's a short drop and final chorus before we get into the extended outro material with a recap of the opening. a lot of reverb and some sfx, and it's done.

this is a quick, fun approach to the original. i appreciate the focus and direction - it feels much shorter than the four-minute runtime as you spend most of the time building into short chorus sections. [...] nice work."

Like Argle, fellow judge Hemophiliac also said boo to DK64 -- a recurring theme with the game but not Grant's soundtrack! -- yet Hemo enjoyed Argle's fleshing out of "Frantic Factory":

"This is sweet, despite the game killing an entire genre for me as a kid. That's another subject though.

The source has some very memorable parts to it being as sparse as it is. I like the fullness you've given the track to fill everything in, and take away that sparseness. It was a great choice to make it your own this way. [...]

Loved the 2:18 change, this was an excellent time to vary the vibe and get to the other melodic content from the source [...] the arrangement is great and a very fitting inclusion to the unofficial Halloween album. Really enjoyed this."

Boo to you if you bypass Argle's strange brew of GK's DK with DnB. :-) If DK64's gameplay gave you PSTD, that's OK; it's time to get triggered in a different way with "Frantic Factory" given an eeriely energetic expansion!