In a Sensual Way

Doubles Dash Compo 17 ignored the summer sentiment by having participants go back to “School” as its theme. A storm rolled in through the area where the compo organizer resided, further taking the fun out of the season. Level 99 and Wildfire prevailed by making a song with explicit lyrics and an unintentional vocal resemblance to “Weird Al” Yankovic. At the other side of the classroom, blastron and I composed a somber dance pop song making use of several Minimoog V presets. Earlier in the week ThaSauce also had a round of People’s Remix Competition dedicated to the game The Lost Vikings. sggod89 stepped up to arrange the source material by turning it on its head; he infused the tune with jazzy groove and reconstructed the piece in the process.

Dwelling of Duels saw June end as the results of “Town Month” flooded in. As expected considering the theme, a large number of RPGs had been remixed including a pair of Final Fantasy tracks, Dragon Quest and Skies of Arcadia. DoD's distant cousin OLRmageddon finished up its round based on a “Racial Stereotypes” scenario. Captain Hypocrite mentioned he would possibly join, and kept his word thereby becoming the only entrant that month. His Super Punch-Out arrangement stayed within realm of chiptune and asked the question: “Do You Want Some Pizza-Cake?”

Sonic Zone Remix Competition hit a snag of controversy regarding the voting of the previous week; in the end Rexy and Phonetic Hero lost by a hair, spurring a mixture of reactions. Round four of the Robotnik Bracket picked up thereafter, pitting Brandon Strader against Gario. This also caused some commotion due to the implementation of vocoderized vocals; at best they fill up the soundscape, albeit unintelligibly. Brandon played to his strengths, putting to use his live instrumentation and singing to convey a sense of loss and confusion.

SDCompo reached the end of round 67 with nine entries in a variety of styles. This was perhaps because of the wider selection of VSTs allowed for competition: FreeAlpha, TAL-Elek7ro, MrTramp2, and Delay Lama. Meanwhile LLCompo: Battle 23 chose a theme for the week that was unusual given the framework of the compo: participants were asked to make original songs about video games. Leading the listening party was an introduction by Captain Barbatar, whose voice undulated from left to right as he murmured without aim. 

JHCompo on Tuesday marched off into the sun by way of its theme of “The Parade”. I started off the proceedings with my usual narration, this time mixed on top of the keyboard instrumental of “Robot Parade” by They Might Be Giants. chunter bopped his way in with a ragtime-tinged piece composed of lo-fi synth sounds. SonicThHedgog settled on a two-shot of old works since his workstation crashed: the first bangs along in the style of dubstep heavy in reverb; the second is more in line with electro house drenched in piano. irrelevnt pleased the crowd working out layers of sharply juxtaposed instruments and clips, mostly in a salsa style. Finally Duosis forwent any attempt to compose, and merely uploaded a song from an episode of Reading Rainbow.  

Thursday’s OHC brought the past week full circle on the subject of birth, life and “a new beginning”. On that note, or perhaps a dissonant note clashing against it, sci worked out some detuned chords and sliced up some breakbeats. Resonantwaves suffered a crash and seemed to continue sci’s precedent of pads and an ethereal mood. Several contestants referenced birth in their song titles: “(BIRTH)” by A-zu-ra warmed over some chips for adequate ambience; “Time Reborn” by OMGitslewis held a vaguely marchable flair; and “rebirth red” by SupaSpeedStrut ran delay over everything. Near the end of the listening party Roseweave put together a seemingly straightforward piece of electronica, although the elements seemed to jostle at the finish.