Always Wanting More

OLRmageddon LI harkened back to the days of BEER/EAR, providing a handful of sources that entrants could choose from. For bonus points a participant could also elect to include the “wobble” effect associated with the dubstep movement. At the end of the round Brunzolaitis ended up being the only participant: his track “The WUB DAY” offers a heavily compressed take on the game Crystalis, breaking up the overworld theme and ending with constant thuds and reversed speech. People’s Remix Competition 201 fared slightly better in turnout with two entries, both based on the Ganon battle theme from A Link to the Past. SubNormal J3 served up nostalgic lo-bit synths, finding a groove within the shifting time signature and throwing in a bit of piano. Zerothemaster started his remix with a clip from the CDi Zelda, and then settled on a repeating “mai boi” with moody electronics.

The Soundevotion Competition reached its 60^th iteration: an open round that brought in five entries. lwpss made his first ever SDCompo entry, displaying minimal drum and bass that works in elements of jungle and voice clips. ambtrax chose to comment on the recent UK riots via a news footage sample, and built up a mixture of industrial drums strings and a fair amount of synthetic harmonies. chunter attempted to write a song in a foreign language, making use of two speech synthesizer voices to convey pop phrases with the help of a proofreader. ThumbWrestler’s entry begins with a lone arpeggio that multiplies and desynchronizes until it crescendos, leading to an ambient section with distorted grunts. stardiaries submitted extensive glitch percussion as a bed for a heavily gated low end riff and sub-bass tones. Finally organic_io wrote his entry on a Pocket PC before importing his work into Renoise; the acid bass is complemented by cymbal work and a vocal-like detuned lead before dropping in a beat.

JHCompo on Tuesday began in the wake of tropical storm Irene and thus featured a “Hurricane” theme. DJ_SOMBRERO once again showed off his latino-tinged electro announcing “¡oyé! ¡Es un huracan!” and changing up the mood halfway through. MisfitBYTE mostly stayed above the storm by sticking to the high end of the frequency spectrum using chippage. Clockwerk’s ambient track takes a while to fade in, but finds its groove and coasts along unsettling dissonance befitting the theme. chunter unfurled his sweeping piano entry and remarked upon events that happened to his relatives in the description. Lo-bit broken-up chords permeate nikola’s tune along with a funky rhythms and other panned instruments. MandraSigma released a firmware update for “iHurricane”, the only cyclone that doesn’t support flash floods. Jacob summoned his tribal drums and string sections, and then lays down the drums and synth for a piece that apparently fell out of a disaster-film trailer.

mv’s “Opportunistic Desolation” earns its title by serving up somber chord structures driven by his usual trip-hop stylings. sci uploaded a track composed in 40 minutes that comes off as being partway between oompah-oompah and untz. youngstrizzle presented his nerdcore song lamenting the damage to his roof and offering a sandwich. coda countered the theme with a laidback composition with particular attention made to sonorities. Detective Tuesday broke out the drum machine for some minimal dance laden with exotic percussion and choir. The stormy elephant in the room came from Zovi, who sent up nine minutes of distortion so loud that even the silent intermission peaked the decibel scale. At the end of the listening party SonicThHedgog managed to submit in time after several missed attempts in prior rounds, using rain and rising bass synth topped with a searing melody before introducing wub-wub-wub.

For Thursday's OHC the theme dealt with voracity, leaving things wide open for interpretation. DJ_SOMBRERO showed up to ThaSauce with spicy bongos over frantic un-tiss and again offered a message en español. dusthillguy submitted an extended speech featuring Microsoft Sam regarding the installation of Linux. MandraSigma's ambient entry consists of him saying the phrase "I need more" and putting it through various filters. nikola again used an arp as a basis for his tune, accompanied but guitar buzz and acoustic drums. RAMPKORV worked the piano four over four minutes, ending with sporadic burst on the keys. sci's track features pitch vocal grunts and a patchwork of clips nailed down with a beat. Mirby returned to compo with her distinctive extemporaneous keyboard layering, this time throwing in an ursine growl.

Cowbell is X-Trav's best friend based on his first OHC entry, working up a lather of other instruments and phasing the bell across the stereo field. Foozogz uploaded sped-up funk that he admitted was his weirdest ever. Forty-Two balanced things out with softer composition filled with piano and pads with a length of three minutes, his longest ever. jarski created a sequel to his OHC108 entry "the funky nightmare" that is perhaps slightly funkier than the original. Follow a trend for the night General Mumble started his entry with a lone arp and develops a groove over the course of the song. td244's solo horn line brings to mind Banjo-Kazooie, but otherwise carries a distinguished air as orchestral accompaniment swells.

CJthemusicdude indirectly admitted to using the compo round to test out his MIDI keyboard and synths; after an ambient intro, his tune goes into a more beat-driven mode and back again. DDRKirby(ISQ) fired up his chippiness with plentiful kick drum and ventures on a spacey journey cascading amongst 8-bit blurps. An sensual moan marks the start of munchi's submission "Sex" before going into a rap about the subject. BrandonS's entry title was so long that it apparently broke the site's player, but it problem was eventually solved revealing a extended guitar tuning session. scibot9000 wrapped things up with and extended version of his OHC139 entry "hey, That's MY Shadow" incorporating bits from 20 of his own songs in a chaotic amalgam ending with several iterations of 3-4-5-1-8.

When I veered away from making music in compos, I knew I would eventually become conflicted. I grew uninterested in producing music, but I also wish to maintain connections to the competitions community. While it's entirely possible that I may disappear as an active participant entirely, I'll always have an interest in chronicling compo adventures.