ReMix:The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass "Sword of Sand" 3:13

Our FIRST ReMix of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass comes from Hylian Lemon (Benjamin Hoffman), with a sweet 9-bit arrangement chock full of chips & a neatly processed harp:

"This was originally a People's Remix Compo bonus entry in 2009. After my Link's Awakening track got posted, I figured I owed it to the Zelda series to submit something from a less popular game, so I came back to this track and revised it for submission. Considered as a whole, most people aren't really fond of Phantom Hourglass's soundtrack, but it's got a couple of standout tunes: Linebeck's theme, and the Ocean King/Oshus's theme. Linebeck's theme seems like the obvious choice, so I didn't do it.

The original arrangement was made when I was still just starting to feel my way into chippy sounds. There was no EQ to speak of. No rainbow color-coded channel organization. I don't know how I could have lived in such squalor. If you want to see how much you've changed over the last five years, just open up an old project file. In conclusion: portable Zelda, y'all. I challenge everyone to get more of them onto the site before I do."

This is the 10th posted ReMix that Ben's been associated with, and his skill for integrating chip sounds into intricate, well-planned arrangements is in full effect; zykO writes:

"unshockingly, Hylian Lemon delivers a fantastic zelda tune that does so much as an arrangement, it's hard to get hung up on the repetitiveness of it... which is entirely forgivable since a lot of chiptune music tends to appearthat way like kris points out.

i'm just blown away by how rich this arrangement is; it doesn't just arrange the three identified sources but rather pulls together a comprehensive treatment of the entire series (if nothing else, it makes you feelthat way). the truth is, zelda music is very much centralized compositionally; well over half of the franchise's themes are based off of the original zelda overworld theme and hylian lemon shows a clear understanding of that with this remix."

DarkeSword adds:

"LOVE the source tune, love the game. Great soundscape with the chip/harp mix. Pitch-bendy square waves really channel the sound of older Gameboy Zeldas. Awesome arrangement."

Judges were unanimous and their review basically a formality, and I think you'll hear why; Hylian is always on-point with his arrangements and part-writing, and I like that he intros with a non-chip, traditional instrument (harp) and also adds a nice twist on the processing/filtering - very cool. As Waleed pointed out, this is definitely a Phantom Hourglass arrangement, but the compositional links to core franchise melodies run deep, so if you haven't played the game but are otherwise an avid fan of Zelda and its music (pretty large demographic!) you'll still feel very much at home. Great work & a great way to start the week!