Home Again

This past week marked the final round of the World Warrior Remix Royale, which pitted contestants against each other in the name of Street Fighter remixes. Round 3 of the Shoryuken bracket brought in an entry by DusK, who gave the material the heavy rock treatment. The Sonic Zone Remix Competition was in the process of setting up its tournament, giving out the roster spreadsheet and encouraging future entrants to enjoy the Remix Royale in the meantime. In the realm of SolidComposer the “do what you do” compo promised a very relaxed approach to music making, and perhaps because of this the number of entries remained at zero.

LLCompo: Battle 14 elevated the participants to “The Sky” and provided a dictionary definition of the heavens above. Kay Faraday uploaded a “Captain’s Announcement” in which WVI mumbled through the speaker system about the plane’s imminent crash. The round featured its usual regulars: Tilde entered co-op mode with Underscore for a fusion of chips and strings; blink364 served up trance, hard drums and an assortment of blips; Saif presented his characteristic metals stylings. A number of tracks expectedly contained “sky” in the title such as Delphinus’ “Up in the Sky”, MKC’s “Skymall”, and intense intents’ rather imaginative “ssssskyyyyy”.

JHCompo on Tuesday unintentionally continued the Cast Away-like storyline of LLCompo by taking a raft on a “Moonlit Ocean”. Clunkst went so far as to call his composition “Wilson”, which he jotted down on paper during class beforehand. swordofdestiny made some magic using the applause sound from FL Studio amongst ear-catching chords. Tomapella’s provocative “Raft Porn” takes a gentle groove of synths and floats it over an ambient beat. Clockwerk made his way to Oahu in reverse and breakbeated along with an array of glitch effects, thus proving that the ukulele can in fact get the party moving.

ShinyBoom slung back on his “Electric Caustics” for a moody, eclectic mixture of electronics while liquid wind evoked a distant choir and bells for his “murmurs of the moon”. At the end of the night skyndileg sent up a stirring speech in tribute to a fallen vessel, which was particularly poignant given the recent re-release of the film Titanic. The ensuing voyage was such that it caused SonicThHedgog to experience the same “Night” thrice: his track that melded dance rhythms and rock guitars was short and fun enough to warrant being listed three times due to an upload error.

Thursday’s OHC tightened its wheels securely to the frame and prepared for a “Driving Competition”. LOLitslewis started things off with a “Genre Defining Intro” in the style of Randy Newman, whom coincidentally the organizer starla is not fond of. The round thus roared off into the late hours with JackShine’s return to OHC after several weeks joined by a pack of bees, and Zovi sending up an equally stinging wall of sound. After General Mumble unmentionably titled track and JackTHerbert specifically telling the audience “Don’t Listen to This”, CJthemusicdude turned the compo on its head by providing a game show quiz as his entry, running at 14 minutes.

The round featured its share of weathered veterans: Chickenwarlord had to suffer a fire alarm going off for most of the time allotted; Arcana turned on his Xbox 360 for a racing game backed by his own arpeggio-filled dance track; DDRKirby(ISQ) stunned the crowd once again by doing a dual homage to A-zu-ra and starla; and Bren produced his fabled brenchords that never fail to disappoint. Probably the most standout take on the theme came from sci, who broke the fifth wall by making an entry in which he hangs back to listen to the other entrants: in “The Drive to Compo” he simulated the music styles of Zovi, DDRKirby(ISQ) and dusthillguy.

Old and New

For the past week we’ve seen the continuation of established compos, and the launch of new ones. The World Warrior Remix Royale reached the voting stage for round 3 of the Hadouken Bracket. Both combatants pitted a Ryu theme against a Chun-Li one, but each resulting arrangement had its own distinct flavor: Ghetto Lee Lewis expressed a mellow piano groove backed by a beat, while Gario shook up the dancefloor and led this track with searing synths. People’s Remixing Competition 216 found a rescue in the form of a lone remix of the game Monkey Hero put up by Chickenwarlord, who admittedly created it due to the lack of turnout. 

The Sonic Zone Remix Competition began its recruitment period and planned to keep it open for two weeks, but interest was such that it locked at 32 participants in no time at all. SDCompo round 66 saw some revisions in its rules: the submission stage was extended to six weeks, and now allows the use of four VSTs – Synth1, daHornet, Crystal, and TAL NoiseMaker. At SolidComposer a new 3-hour compo cropped up by the name of “do what you do” stating its rules as not much more than that: "play music-you got three hours to do what you do".

LLCompo: Battle 13 spoke of the Illuminati, coupled with a description that effectively collapsed under the weight of its own conspiracy theories. The introduction for the night was narrated by WVI and s1rnight, who traded off top secret info about [REDACTED] only to be partially cut off by The Price Is Right. The regulars each had their own take on the theme, including MaxVdub’s “spooky” falling fifths progressions on guitar, PowerFail’s blues rock track “The Blueminatti”, and incorporator’s industrial track uniquely titled “illuminati”. Some new LLCompo entrants also appeared such as liquidwind putting on a chiptune spin while Clunkst made an intriguing suggestion to “Google illuminati backwards”.

JHCompo on Tuesday tried out some extended functionality by embedding a photo into the theme description; “Ancient Temple” was accompanied by a Mayan pyramid. skyndileg went to work sending his drones to do his bidding by way of a “Working Song”. At “Furg’s Temple" Clunkst put together quirky sonorities propelled by contant arpeggios. Maraki layered a soundscape out of various strumming takes, culminating in fast paced electronic frenzy. Clockwerk took some “Mayan Acid” and slid into a foray of ambience and hand percussion. Finally liquidwind directly referenced the assets of the photo for the round, thereby hinting at the fact that he had suggested the picture in the first place.

Thursday’s OHC lost its mind when it described the moment when one has lost perspective: a “Mental Breakdown”. On that note dusthillguy immediately uploaded his signature-style off-the-wall composition spanning 15 seconds. The listening party only became more random from that point as BrandonS talked about Final Fantasy II being amazing, and TheMisterCat formatted his lyrical text as a cumbersome scroll. The OHC organizer starla sent along a song of her own, backing her vocals with arpeggios and a glitch groove that would not be out of place in Tron 3. Trancient introduced a “NOHC” concept involving taking one’s own previous entry, polishing it and sending it along for a new listen. At the end of the night Jakesnke17 snuck in late with an ethereal soundbed and thick drums that was well worth the delay.

The Stunning Truth

This past week was home to a multitude of compos, bringing artists together and promoting growth for all those involved. The World Warrior Remix Royale reached the voting stage for round two of the Shoryuken Bracket, bringing out a trio of Street Fighter remixes. DusK rocked with an undertow of ambience; Main Finger paired double bass with heavy funk beats and scratches; and Sir_NutS stuck to his 80s electro vibe complete with accented piano chords. The end of the week promises to bring further fun when the Sonic Remix Competition begins, considering the many beloved compositions of the Sega franchise. 

Chipmusic.org held a number of competitions and showed a bit of innovation in a strict sense of the word. For the Chiptune Battle Challenge, Entrant A creates a tune that the Combatant B battles by playing off of that initial musical idea. The resulting track is then countered by Entrant A and so on, continued in brackets. This compo concept was innovated upon with the creation of the Weekend Battle Challenge, taking it further by incorporating themes for each battle, suggested by others and thrown into a hat. The organizer took pride in the fact that the Challenge uses an actual hat and actual strips of paper representing themes.

LLCompo: Battle 12 imbued the week’s “Dungeon” theme with the spirit of Easter this past Sunday by way of an ASCII bunny. As usual the listening party’s introduction was put up by Kay Faraday and narrated by WVI. The round was welcomed by its gang of regulars including Saif’s guitar noodling, PowerFail’s session of metal and WVI’s own lo-bit pop. As the pleasantries wrapped up, a technical snafu occurred causing one entry to appear twice: Jerkwater’s pulsing “MindDungeon” is perhaps one of those dance tracks that should be listened to more than once. 

JHCompo on Tuesday guided everyone “Home at Last” for the night and eased them to relax. Clunkst worked the piano and chimes to a set of harmonies befitting the title “the land of perpetual excitement”. irrelevnt fell asleep for half of the compo, but managed to put the remaining 60 minutes to good use for an acoustic guitar and vocal entry. Kay Faraday went into “Korby’s House” punctuating familiar synth stabs with silence. After running into trouble uploading his track Clockwerk presented his six minute long foray into IDM leaning toward break beats. Finally SonicThHedgog entered as a distant last, and urged other entrants guess his source material.

Thursday’s OHC prompted contestants to look back upon the past with its “Reflection” theme. Fusion2004 started things off by reflecting on a chipified chord progression and asking listener to guess which one it is. A slew on entries followed, a great deal of which mentioned reflections and mirrors in the track title. One that differed from the pack was Starshine’s inexplicably titled “pepperoni” that goes from mellow electronica to flat-out rock in less than a minute. sci chose to reminisce on past compo experiences while Arcana noted that his previous submission was labeled “reflection.mp3”. At the end of the night Beat Match replicated the chords from a Deadmau5 song and produced dubstep with increasingly abrasive gain, ironically revealing “The Stunning Truth” just as everyone went deaf.

The Nyan Games

Double’s Dash Compo 14 continued with its new rule of adhering to a theme for participants to follow: In addition to collaborating with a songwriting partner that night, entrants had to write a song about intimacy and closeness. The two teams each tackled the challenge from contrasting perspectives: “Wishy Washy Relationships” is sexually explicit while “Hugging Time” dealt with brotherly affection. SDCompo also completed its 65th round with a handful of submissions adhering to the samplepack and tracker requirements established on the site’s rules. Battle of the Bits had a fair amount of competition activity over the last week as well, including a “KLINK” battle based on a pack, and a “Spring Tracks” compo forbidding cover versions of any kind. 

People’s ReMixing Competition 215 fared well in terms of remixes submitted, with three entries. For the round two Phoenix Wright source tracks were selected, and contestants were encouraged to rearrange both. JerryTerry intended to remix only one, but settled on an amalgam of both by starting off on mellow piano and building to a degraded electro beat. For his first remix Darren Schwinghamer tacked the material with an orchestral spin, which proved to be more difficult for him with software than using the acoustic instruments. A wild Chickenwarlord appeared and worked out a quick entry due to time constraints, introducing a new set of lyrics. 

OLRmageddon LIX featured “Batman” as its theme and had the additional stipulation that entries include a self-made drawing of a villain conceived by the entrant. Thus the music and the drawing would be voted upon separately. Dwelling of Duels had its jingle month that focused on the shorter video game tunes of the world, and perhaps as a result the turnout was smaller than usual. The Street Fighter compo World Warrior Remix Royale began the voting stage for round two of the Hadouken Bracket, which had remixes from Ghetto Lee Lewis and OA leading to a close vote. On Sunday LLCompo Battle 11 fell upon April Fool’s Day, which was acknowledged in the description but was otherwise not a part of the round’s “Anime” theme.

JHCompo on Tuesday took participants on a perilous journey as “The Messenger” to deliver a package on time. SonicThHedgog preceded the festivities with a JHC advertisement of his own creation on his SoundCloud page. With a bed of synthesizers, MandraSigma sent his bad news successfully and ended on a tempo slowdown. Shadix made his “Interstellar Distress Call” braving a bevy of asteroids, cosmic strings, and other things that are probably in space. SonicThHedgog made a 911 call by way of ambient electronics and some familiar video game sounds, followed by some electronic. Finally Duosis delivered late and pitched some sample-loops to set a mellow mood lasting a little over a minute. 

Thursday’s OHC brought back the ghosts of days gone by with its “Haunting Past” theme. Unlike the last few rounds, the night was without an introduction by The Stuff of Legends. Instead the listening party started off with “The Haunting White Boy Rap” by LOLitslewis putting together sub-bass, a drum machine, self-deprecating lyrics and a Nyan Cat exit. A number of newcomers joined OHC, including Gottvich with gritty ambience and blastron using copious amounts of reverb. The round was also home to longtime veterans: Arcana's submission made use of strings and oboe; sci bounced along the dancefloor with vocal samples; and DDRKirby(ISQ) fittingly sent along a re-imagined Kirby’s Adventure tune. At the end of the party the_lulzorz disqualified himself when he indulged in a “Nyan Hop” bathed in breakbeats, thereby creating a bookending effect.

Sing Gently

This week was a double dose of nostalgia for Punchfest 17, since it required that participants remix tunes from games they each received on their respective birthdays. As a result, the round brought about five entries from a variety of titles. The tracks covered a wide range of approaches, from Rexy’s frantic koto work, to PoD’s fart tribute of Snappleman, to Obtuse's plucked bass, and Plank's acoustic soloing. The World Warrior Remix Royale also began the voting stage for round 1 of the Shoryuken Bracket, releasing a slew of Street Fighter remixes into the wild. This past Sunday saw LLCompo celebrate its tenth round by setting its theme to “Yourself” and asked contestants to “look inside” for the answer.
 

JHCompo on Tuesday was put in a forbidding chamber with its “Torture” theme. After my music-backed introduction, dusthillguy admitted that he was not at his best and thus put up a brief, familiar riff. liquid wind’s atonal sonorities evoked the sense of “tortured phantoms” including piano, scratching effect and a steady kick. bjkmenu's funky pop got a thumbs up from superjoe when the music stuck closely to the written description of the night’s round. Clockwerk expressed the torture that a lot of composers go through: “Daw Crash Freeze”, in his case an ambient electronic piece ending with an unintentional recording of my intro. Finally SonicThHedgog worked out some acoustic strumming, electric shreds and searing lead to wrap things up. 

Thursday’s OHC spoke of its audience not making progress by way of its theme, “Wasting Time”. The listening party began with an introduction by The Stuff of Legends, reading the theme description with a mellow musical backing. dusthillguy followed with a series of noodled guitar arpeggios set to no particular tempo. DucksUnlimited had fittingly “Totally Forgot” about the compo and put together a patchwork of twangs, clanks, piano, and synth bass. CJthemusicdude pondered a brief history of time, and then whipped out his Theremin to rock. General Mumble used a catchy hook to sing about wasting time to a tuplet-centric, swingy electro beat. sci sampled “The Rockefeller Skank” as the basis of his epic mashup, using all manner of elements including wub-wubs. HarryNilsson'sGhost feared entering the chat because of the perceived quality of his improvised piano-and-vocals entry. 

analoq stated that “hemo is over” and settled in chilled-out Rhodes for the “socal sunset”. Forty-Two soared above the clouds in a flurry of electronic harmonies, sweeps and pads. DDRKirby(ISQ) collaborated with Acuity and set about a bunch of experiments whilst getting nothing done, per the theme. A-zu-ra inserted his vintage cartridge Procrastination Fighters and thus raged against the chips. Misael.K traveled to a “Sunny Park” and decided to burn daylight in 3/4 time. scibot9000 transmitted its entry for CJthemusicdude by sampling his pre-flatulatory grunt and colliding into dubstep. OMGitslewis wrote his entry description in all caps to emphasize the rise of Ultra Nintenga, the world’s most advanced time waster. Fusion2004 busted out his percussion for a freewheeling acoustic entry with dollops of flute and guitar. Trancient settled on a trip hop rhythm dotted by 8-bit blips “Wasting Happily Away”. 

Kaxon revealed that he attended a Zelda-themed concert the previous night, perhaps influencing the mood for the strings and piano of his composition. MandraSigma woke up at an inopportune time and maneuvered around a gauntlet of glitch effects before reaching his workspace. Arcana established a tense, dancey tune, waiting until just the right moment to realize time wasted. Toward the end of the night dusthillguy and Destroid suffered a teleporter accident to become the freak of nature known as desthillroid; the violent clash of chord progressions and nostalgic instrument sets may be too much for the average listener to bear. Finally the night ended with a second entry from DDRKirbyISQ thanking OHC for being host to his many productions. 

As a personal note I’d like to thank OHC myself as an entrant and follower for many years. Although my behavior and mindset had taken a regretful turn, I nevertheless enjoyed being a part of the community. The feedback and advice I received for my music I uploaded each week was invaluable, and is part of my workflow to this day. I grew as a musician thanks to the positive reinforcement of my peers. For a long while I took my connection to this community for granted, but now I see the situation with clearer eyes. My experience in compo-ing and interacting with others has made an indelible mark on my creative life. I hope that others continue to discover this experience too, and benefit from it as I had.

Made of Pieces

People’s Remixing Competition 214 started off with its chosen source material, Castlevania III available for participants to remix. A trio of entries came about as the round wrapped up: Zerothemaster worked out some reverb-heavy piano interpretation, surrounded by deep synths and lo-fi high end. chroxic’s drum and bass has perhaps too much sub-bass as well as a half-rhythm indicative of dubstep influence. Yami rounded things out with his first entry for PRC mainly out of love of the source, beginning soft and tearing a hole in the soundscape for a trance-y take. The World Warrior Remix Royale also began the voting stage for round one of the Hadouken Bracket, which brought about seven entries. LLCompo: Battle 9 followed shortly thereafter with 15 compositions related to its theme of “The Sea”.

JHCompo on Tuesday invited entrants to ascend “The Throne” and compose in a royal manner. After my Conker’s Bad Fur Day-sampling introduction, a wild dusthillguy appeared for a session of bass playing. Jakesnke17 came back to JHCompo after some time away, serving up his usual tribal percussion, strings and horns. ShinnyMetal similarly returned and made his “Contemplation of the Throne” by way of somber solo piano. Obtuse took his present drum beat and made a competent dance tune despite not being fully sober. Both he and Jarski admitted that their music were unrelated to the theme and made some untz for the sake of untz. Kay Faraday broke out of the cage for a “Battle Royale” of chips that lasts a full minute. skyndileg riled up the orchestra for “Coronation of the Damned” that takes a quiet turn before coming in full force. Listeners noted that oginome’s 8-bit track suffered from an unusually swing beat, but otherwise garnered complements. At the end of the round SonicThHedgog put up his characteristic Sonic-infused rock licks, while MandraSigma set his spaceship coordinates to electro. 

Thursday’s OHC once again had a theme presented by an epic introduction by The Stuff of Legends, this time set to a lush orchestral backdrop. AutomaticJack created a four-second track in two minutes, bringing in quality rather than quantity. Misael.K’s clashing harmonies are centered by a synth bass and eventually a chime to “Remember the Future”. DucksUnlimited generated a chorus of pitch vocal clips leading into mellow industrial. JackTHerbert unintentionally continued the vibe of the previous entry by retaining the key, but picked things up with some fast drum and bass. isidor3’s studio hiss established the stirring mood pervaded by acoustic guitar, bass and distant piano. Acuity fell into a deep sleep and entered a “Dreamscape” somewhere within the bowls of a Game Boy. General Mumble pulled the listening party back to the realm of ambience and heavy effects, eventually slamming down drums. OMGitslewis traverse a long tunnel of reverb emphasizing each beat of every measure until finally laying a drop. 

sci pondered the mixture of jazz with brostep, the result sounding like a scratched jungle breaks CD. Fusion2004 stumbled upon a keyboard shortcut activating a quantum leap of blips transitioning to orchestral. Forty-Two’s bell-like pads and minimal structure adequately represented a voyage through “Alien Landscape” punctuated by piano. cyberjet189 deftly experimented with compression to make a hip hop piece with hints trance chords. The clanging of bells rises in CJthemusicdude’s entry and melds with layers upon layers of arpeggios. Arcana lifted the low-pass filter just enough to let the sonorities and dance beats fill the listening party’s ears. A-zu-ra’s sparce intro belies the eventual dense arrangement of 8-bit elements. Foozogz layer together recording of a multitude of musical sounds topped with an incomprehensible song title. jarski began with just bass, and the other pieces of the brass-filled electronic soundscape fell into place. Roseweave's track apparently followed the established bass-plus-reverb pattern of the night.  

Trancient made the plunge from a life of piano to that of boom-pat, and back again. DDRKirby(ISQ) celebrated his 100th OHC entry by incorporating techniques old and new and spanning nearly nine minutes MandraSigma pondered a conspiracy and glitching some lo-bit instruments and ramblings along the way. Jakesnke17 found himself in the Matrix as evidenced by the slow ebb of trip-hop beats and spacey pads. MisaelK put in another track from the future claiming “This Happened Tomorrow” with a compressed musicbox. After dusthillguy’s eight minute loop, munchi discovered that he submitted on time in a parallel universe, thus allowing him to submit it to the party. Duosis entered with a mixture of sampled and pitch-shifted elements, most notably from the Mark Ronson production "A La Modeliste". At the end of the party bjkmenu expressed failure, but delivered his signature quirky humor rock in spades.

Most Dangerous Game

The past week marked the start of Street Fighter: The World Warrior Remix Royale. For the tournament, each entrant selected a character theme from the Street Fighter series and will battle by way of a “vs remix” merging the theme with that of an opponent. Unlike previous competitions held on OverClocked ReMix, the royale will feature involvement with Capcom for potential inclusion of music in its promotional releases. SDCompo ended round 65 with a handful of entries, and its first place entry agargara gathered much approval despite its unorthodox structure and inexplicable snail-themed lyrics. LLCompo: Battle 8 similarly was home to some unusual verses due in part to its “Robot” theme. Saif in particular teamed up with a friend to create a speed metal song about the rise of the machines. 

JHCompo on Tuesday invited everyone to a “Game Show” where the big prize was perpetually hidden in a question-marked box. My introduction track featured my usual narration, this time set to the Match Game theme song. Duosis chose to make a theme song for a reality show, cutting a sampled rock riff to a pounding house beat and funky bassline. SonicThHedgog in his typical fashion put out a pair of Sonic arrangements and asked listeners to identify the source material. Finally rwarman007 worked out an electronic piece that served to propel his spoken-word instructions about the game show and its progression. 

Thursday’s OHC was preceded by the hype built up at Compo Stadium, detailing the “Battle of the Heroes” theme amongst the flaring of NFL on Fox horns. A-zu-ra demonstrated that overthinking is a mixed blessing, thus leaving his entry untitled and creating a brief chip entry. CSWorks worked out a bouncy, off-kilter battle theme in the style of Final Fantasy. Acuity’s track “Summoner’s Rift” asked participants to select the protagonist and go off on an adventure of lo-fi synths. Miru’s post-piece requiem focuses on playful fights between friends, set to rhythmic orchestral music. DijiTwitch said simply “Kill’em Dead” and ventured to the dance floor with his stabbing piano. BrandonS decided to forgo actually composing a song for the round and instead offered an infomercial for his new EP. DDRKirby(ISQ) similarly promoted his compilation album, but made a new song containing church bells, strings and many blips.

Flik made a rare appearance and submitted a short but effective mixture of industrial and ambiance. Arcana felt that his tune was too upbeat to be about war, so his orchestral jaunt summarizes the joy of victory. CJthemusicdude whipped out his keyboard to rollick among the ivories in a somber composition. Trancient noted that his electronic track sounds better with headphones, which is not a problem considering the listening party’s large percent of producers. Shadix’s entry is possibly shorter than the time it takes to read the track description, but what is heard fits the context. General Mumble arrived an hour late due to a Daylight Savings Time snafu, but shook the dancefloor with arps and a lumbering beast of some sort. sci uploaded another mashup of his that manages to sound cohesive despite the wild mixture of sources. 

munchi made a sly nod to DDRKirby in his entry title and presents the glitched blurbs he worked on as practice. OMGitslewis also sent out a chippy electro tune complete with a chilled middle section and some wubs. Forty-Two soaks his reflective “No Man’s Land” in reverb and subtly played off of his harmonies in a soft manner. Roseweave sang a bit for her submission, seemingly falling onto her microphone in the process. I wrote an original song in OHC for once, with the help of a rhythm guitar recording that I chopped to create chord progressions. At the end of the listening party MandraSigma submitted his “hero theory” for approval, combining keyboard jabs with vocal samples and a patchwork of other elements.