ReMix:The Lawnmower Man "Cyber Mower" 5:34

Some of you may be too young to remember, but there was a period of time in the 1990s when we were CONVINCED that Virtual Reality was:

1. Right around the corner...
2. Going to completely rock our world...
3. Able to turn gardening assistants of below-average intelligence into maniacal geniuses...

Sure, the technology was almost certainly going to result in any number of dystopian scenarios, too, but Denzel Washington would protect us and it would all work out. If you've been saving up your nickels & dimes in fevered anticipation of the VR revolution since then, your ship may finally be coming in with the Oculus Rift, HoloLens, Magic Leap shizzle, and/or Project Morpheus. One or more of these may go the way of Nintendo's hazy-shades-of-crimson Virtual Boy, but it's hard to imagine ALL of them failing. It thus appears that we are once again on the cusp of VR bliss, and this time the prognosis looks much rosier. Seems like an opportune moment for our FIRST EVAR ReMix of Allister Brimble's soundtrack to The Lawnmower Man for the SNES, from newcomer APZX (Austin Simons), who gives the original first level BGM an outer-space EDM/dance jam treatment with a satisfying 5'33" duration & a delicious, late-breaking synth solo:

"A remix of the first level song in the SNES version of the Lawnmower Man. I have always wanted to do a remix of the first song from this game, because I remember hearing it and saying to myself, "This is freakin' AWESOME!" What really got me going with the original though was that bassline. It just sounded right. Fast-forward to now and I had a recent stroke of inspiration and that is when the track "Cyber Mower" came to life. I know it is a terrible name. But to be fair, I have never been good at coming up with names. There really is not a lot of fun production notes though, other than it came together very quickly.

Right, so I'm resubmitting this. I feel it differs too much from my original vision of the track, which the panel had picked up on, but did not feel it worked for OCR. I completely understood where the panel was coming from, honestly, and while originally irate, I thought about it and ended up agreeing the with panel in the end. Now, the track is still very much "Cyber Mower," just with "enhancements" (I hope). Other than revisiting the mix, which I always had personal complaints about, the primary focus was on the middle of the track. I spent a lot of time deliberating on how best to keep a nebulous middle that was more interesting to listen to. To that end, I reworked the macro dynamics of that portion of the track quite a lot. Added in some more instrumentation primarily in the form of another layered pad, a lead that borrows mostly verbatim from the source, and some drums that, while short-lived, I can only describe as cyber meets ambient, which really doesn't make any sense. Overall, I have to say that I think the track is more energetic now with a more complex flow. Don't know what else to say."

Realllllly glad Austin tweaked & revised this, because the result is a stronger track that unanimously passed the panel and which feels solid & complete. 5'33" is on the longer side for this type of ReMix, but there's a lot of development and my interest was held throughout. Palpable addresses this point:

"Interesting source and interesting arrangement approach. I liked the spaciousness and relaxed feel of the first minute or so. There was good use of automation and layering to provide direction while keeping the actual melody content minimal. Tasteful use of FX in the middle section and after. Really, I think this kind of arrangement that doesn't focus much on melody is tough to do. It's very easy to be too aimless or too repetitive, but you successfully avoided that."

With specific regard to the revisions made, Chimpazilla adds:

"Now that's what I'm talkin' about! That middle section was such a huge missed opportunity, now it is COOOOOL. That's the stuff. All other issues I mentioned have been addressed. You made a very good 3d soundscape. This is epic now, I'm super loving it. Putting it in my favorites folder."

Agreed; this arrangement does a great job of walking the line between a groove that you can kinda lose yourself in but also something that develops nicely and throws some curveballs. If I were mowing my virtual lawn in cyberspace after a long drive on the information superhighway, I know that I personally would enjoy such tunage ;) Great debut from APZX that focuses on some esoteric-but-deserving source material and gets us all appropriately pumped for VR 2.0, which will be an improvement over VR 1.0 in that it will (probably) exist!