ReMix:Knuckles' Chaotix "Chaotic 5" 6:16

LAST MIX OF 2015!! HAPPY NYE!

It's been a great year for OCR, from a successful forum migration & upgrade, to some superb album releases including the long-anticipated Final Fantasy IX: Worlds Apart, to 226 featured ReMixes... slightly fewer than last year, breaking our trend of ever-increasing totals, but that just means we're gonna have to compensate in 2016 ;) I'd like to give a quick shout out to our supporters on Patreon - you've opened doors for us and made OCR's future brighter than ever!

So how do we cap off such a great year?? Well, howsabout a funky Knuckles Chaotix joint from OverClocked Assembled? That work?

Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Knuckles Chaotix (1995, 32X), this raptacular & funky hip-hop ReMix arrives JUST IN TIME for your NYE celebrations and features the formidable talents of the OverClocked Assembled posse, who lay down another heapin' helpin' of music & verse... their previous featured mixes have been juggernauts of juicy beats & fresh rhymes, and - non-spoiler alert - they've done it again; lineup as follows:

• metaphist - main arrangement, vocals: Charmy Bee
• begoma - vocals: Vector the Crocodile
• DiGi Valentine - vocals: Mighty the Armadillo
• The Auracle - vocals: Espio the Chameleon
• José the Bronx Rican - vocals: Knuckles the Echidna
• Sir Jordanius - vocals: Bomb/Heavy/Metal Sonic
• BrothaDom - vocals: Bomb/Heavy/Metal Sonic
• SuperiorX - supporting synths

"Assembled," indeed; the amount of talent contained in that humble, unordered bullet list is mind-blowing and/or pants-wetting. It really doesn't matter, because your mind will be so blown that whatever happened in your pants won't even register. I'm going to move on, now... about the mix itself, metaphist (Paul Ford) writes:

"Let me tell you guys a little story. One day, 20 years ago (!), I stumbled upon a particular GameFan magazine that had the most colorful cover - front and center was Knuckles the Echidna, with four of the most bad ass Sonic-style characters chilling out behind him. It was probably the coolest thing I'd ever seen at the time. My mom bought it for me, and I would spend hours just looking at the dazzling full-page spreads within, and drawing the characters, wondering if I'd ever actually get to play this obscure game...

Well, I never did get to play the game back then, but I did eventually stumble upon the soundtrack around the time when I was trying to get something onto OCR. This also happened to be around the time when "Unknown from M.C." came out, which was instantly one of my favorites. I had this crazy idea in my head that one day, when I was actually good at music, I would ask José to return as Knuckles over a remix of my own from Knuckles' Chaotix.

What I *didn't* imagine back then, is that I'd one day have access to a group of emcees in the form of OverClocked Assembled who wanted to do that very sort of thing. Everyone loved the idea, and I knew that if we approached José with a concept this good, there was no way he could say no. He would have to come back, even though he is the busiest man alive. >:) Shout-outs to him for doing us justice, and the rest of the OCA crew for making some random idea I had way back when something much, much cooler!"

It's very cool that this all originated with José the Bronx Rican's original debut mix from all the way back in 2004 - it took over a decade for the inspiration to reverberate & coalesce into this mix and build towards this day, but it was worth it. Mr. Felix writes:

"One of the simplest, yet most satisfying things to see is to receive props from the people that come after you. It's almost quaint to say that didn't happen enough in hip hop, because that lack of respect seems to occur in all entertainment now. I definitely appreciated the consideration of the OverClocked Assembled collective, who decided, "we gotta get 'MC' Knux back in here for this track," and it really was a perfect idea, so why not? I gave them a verse acknowledging the return, repping the posse, and also tweaking the self-flagellating fan community in the process.

Finding time and effort, of course, was the bottleneck: every time I thought I'd be done quickly, I dropped a hint, like on one of our Talkbacks, only to be pushed back with other stuff. Here's my anecdote: while finishing the verse, I was transitioning to better recording equipment, and got a new Focusrite Scarlett, but couldn't get a new mic yet. Also considering my noisy-ass neighbors, I couldn't hold off any longer, so I brought the interface and the old hypercardioid (the same mic used on "M.C.") to my job. I work in a medical record department, so after everyone left, I went to work in one of our file rooms, because (PROTIP) a room full of patient records in their folders can be as dead as any studio booth. We missed the anniversary of Chaotix' release, but we can drag the celebration for a year. Enjoy!"

Make music wherever you can, whenever you can, however you can :) Good resolution for 2016, for anyone who still needs one! When José made his OCR debut many moons ago, he really brought something fresh & new to the site; it's great to see that contribution paying musical dividends 11 years later. New, proud, & sleep-deprived father Larry "Babytamer" Oji writes:

"Nice work, and what a meta mix. "Knuckles' Unknown from M.C." was the only song I ever played twice on the same episode of a VG Frequency back in my college radio days. It was definitely a revelation, so it's awesome to read the story on this one. Big props to Paul for not only having a grand vision, not only building his skills in the decade-plus since "Knuckles' Unknown from M.C." dropped, but EXECUTING with an awesome collaboration with José the Bronx Rican and bringing him into the fold of OverClocked Assembled. Everyone killed it! :-)"

I'd go even further; everyone killed it, temporarily resuscitated it with a bolt of lightning, then killed it AGAIN, just to be sure. The amazing thing about this mix is the amount of motion & polish on the bassline & other accompanying elements, COUPLED with the rapping/singing; things never get cluttered, it's smooth like butter, and there's so much fun stuff going on that's all executed so well that it almost feels decadent :) Amazing arrangement filled with heart, soul, craft, and skill.... the ONLY way to end 2015; mad props to OverClocked Assembled & José, finally reprising his alter ego from 2004!

Have fun, party safe, drop this jam into your NYE playlists or I'll punch you, and we'll see you in 2016!!