I Am So Care

July’s Dwelling of Duels was a Free Month, which allowed participants to choose their source material without restrictions. Hat tackled Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in a jazzy style, picking up steam halfway through; the listening party noted that the track would have benefited from live sax instead of a sampled one, but was otherwise impressed. Snappleman delivered a 10-minute arrangement of Etrian Odyssey III that rides a minimal riff, layers power chords and works in various transitions including as one listener called it, “metal to metal”. Dr. Manhattan’s Final Fantasy II arrangement also went for the heavy metal route with a kick drum and overall thick sound that wowed the party. Tonindo incorporated orchestral hits amongst the guitars in his brief rock take on Final Fantasy IX.

tibone offered a medley of themes from Golden Axe and gave each instrument some time under the spotlight in his remix. Pumpkin King and Neo Link teamed up to cover Golden Sun featuring a wide assortment of harmonies, taking a brief moment for a bass solo. CarboHydroM and Scaredsim also joined forces for an arrangement of various Metal Gear games that starts with piano, but then bursts into shredding and synth. Greg set the mood of his Romancing Saga entry using a pad and his bass, then puts down the strumming along with frantic drumming. Skummel Maske similarly began his remix of Silent Hill with a sustained tone, this time leading into acoustic guitar, electronic lead and processed drums.

Brandon Strader’s bongos and cymbal roll lead the way into his Skyrim remix, coupling strings and a rolling combination of acoustic and electric. thesamareaye remixed Star Fox Adventures on guitar accompanied by piano and subtle pads for a mellow sound. A pair of Ys puns followed: Prince of Darkness’s “Ysta La Vista, Baby” included triplet-chugging for Ys I and Ys II punctuated by orchestra, while dasaten’s “Ysy Listening” bounced along Ys III with clarinets. The alternates for the month came from Greg arranging Super Mario Land 2 in a bassy swing style welded onto metal, and DragnBreth remixing the original Legend of Zelda with Link’s Awakening whilst invoking fast keyboard arps and distorted chords.

JHCompo on Tuesday featured “Cat Burglar” as its theme, and with it came various feline puns. DJ Sombrero took on a Latin flavor with his “De Los Gatos” thickening out the track a heavy dose of un-tiss. coda thwarted the theme with a “dog burglar” and submitted music that would not be out of place in an espionage film score. MisfitBYTE admitted to "stealing from Vincent Price" and displayed his subdued ambient electronica. A significant amount of sci’s entry was stolen by a keystroke, but he managed to upload a laidback beat that he classified as a “generic sci song.” MandraSigma wrote a piece about an oafish thief, apparently using a repeated kick to represent the burglar’s clumsiness.

chunter’s “Felis Furtivae” contains dripping-wet guitar that jumps to the side in favor of a pounding dance rhythm. irrelevnt’s spoken intro comes off sounding halfway between Yoda and a 1930s gangster, and is followed by deft guitaring and conventional singing. ShinnyMetal showed everyone his organ and generated a headbobbing riff using a variety of drum patterns. Jarski seemingly caught the cat burglar in the act via an imgur.com photo, accompanied with wobbly pads, acid bass and general trippyness. Finally Detective Tuesday arrived at the scene to investigate the theft, leaving behind a minimal combination of pizzicato cello, glitch choir and off-kilter percussion.

People’s Remix Competition 199 brought in a large turnout, most likely due to the popularity of the source tune provided. Deux Ex had been a successful game when it was first released, and the track chosen uses an accessible chord progression. Xsquader chose to move in a dancefloor direction, maintaining the original tempo but playing up the synthetic nature of the piece. Obtuse cranked up the drum and bass after a thorough introduction for his remix. toilet goat attempted to channel Pendulum for his take on the material, preceded by moody pads and building to energetic drums. Inrade put his stamp on the composition with a spaced-out snare rhythm and a segment of piano chords. beckett007 slowed things down a bit and layered orchestral elements to create a cinematic experience; he remarked that a film adaptation of Deux Ex “would actually rock”.

Zerothemaster started off with raw bloops and brought in choir and a hip hop clap, then ventured into lo-fi dub territory for the track’s duration. chroxic noted how well the tune lends itself to DnB and proceeded to speed up the tempo for the club. After a lengthy hiatus, Nutritious returned with great deal of distortion, sub-bass and incisive synthesizer leads. Gario extolled the virtues of a “Coffee Break with Daedalus and Icarus” panning out the harmonies with a soft groove. evktalo made a point of mentioning that his arrangement “Agenttipäämajatunnussävelmä” was created with Renoise, implementing electronic tom rolls where he saw fit. Rounding out the entries was DjMokram, who infused chiptune into a series of acoustic sounds including a string section.

For Thursday's OHC the theme was "mysterious secret", and as an extra tidbit the organizer starla noted that "this is compo 147 which is a secret magic number". zorg's poetic entry description set the mood for his spacey, shape changing arpeggios and sweeps. sci explored "The Mystery Between Time" with a breakbeats, digitized vocals and nostalgically detuned synths. Tomapella prefaced his submission with a profoundly deranged statement, but sent along his usual pop song stylings featuring harmonized vocals. DarkSim laid down the funk drums and a bassline reminiscent of a song about a Gunn. CJthemusicdude kept the crowd entertained with his expansive entry centered on the ukelele, and reciting various IRC banter. Bren's self-described "bubbly noises" are layered onto numerous harmonic elements over a two-chord pattern. Zovi revealed his secret over the course of four minutes with dark electro and darker whispers of the voice. ProjectSpam's secret on the other hand was so elusive that not even he nor anyone else knew it; he expressed this with his doubled vocals and sparse accompaniment.

siebensus4 sent in his delay-affected piano along with organ, e-strings and percussion. Dr. Arcana was seemingly unable to attend compo, but got his entry in with the help of DDRKirby(ISO). Forty-Two instructed the audience to recall films of yesteryear and put up his vibraphone, keys and sustained chords in 3/4 time. MandraSigma underwent cybernetics study to verify the secret-keeping ability of robots by way of danceable blips. Usabell lost some of his work because of a crash, but showed off his atmospheric tune. jarski's white noise is guided by a steady kick that lets up at the midpoint. ItsMatt's filtered hi-hats and other sounds hug the top of the frequency spectrum and stay there for the remainder. Despite his trouble rendering, DDRKirby(ISQ) used his copy of ModPlug to create a spastic, lo-bit composition. Finally the doctor submitted an entry once again; Arcana unlocked the chippy "Super Secret Bonus Level" and thus brought the listening party to a close.

Earlier in the week I had learned that George Pjeav, perhaps better known in the compo community as chessmaster010, had tragically passed away. His entries in One Hour Compo from 2009 were met with overwhelming praise from listeners, acknowledging his great talent. He will be missed, and my thoughts go out to those close to him.

chessmaster010 - “My instrument is my favorite thing”