ReMix:Super Mario 64 "Ripples of Hope" 5:18

From the creative dream team of Emunator (Wes McDonald) & Chimpazilla (Kristina Scheps) and just in time for summer comes a refreshing, tropical dance/pop take on several themes from Super Mario 64, most notably the lesser-mixed "File Select" BGM, with a stylistic nod to "Africa" by Toto; Wes writes:

"This is one of my most ambitious arrangements to date. The original "File Select" song from SM64 was only about 20 seconds long, but it served as a warm, gentle prelude to a grand adventure that left a huge nostalgic imprint on my mind.

It was a challenge expanding such a short source to a full-fledged 5 minute arrangement. To accomplish that, I shuffled between several styles here - because it's me, it's full of layered, watery pads and a dozen different bell sounds, but I wanted to really flesh out my style with some synth/pop influences, and also bring back more of the ethnic overtones that were featured in my first two remixes. The last section is a (hopefully very obvious) homage to "Africa" by Toto that I had an absolute blast writing.

This has been in the works for over 2 years. It was sitting at about 90% completion for the longest time, but something was missing. I showed it to my good friend Chimpazilla and she just ran with it. She filled in the gaps in my track with some original melodies and harmonies, additional percussion and pad layers, and gave it a dynamite mastering job that really made it shine. She helped me get over that last hurdle and truly do justice to the original concept I had in mind."

Kris adds:

"What Wes said covers it. We fine-tuned the track for a couple hours together, then let it fly. :-)"

Very cool & crisp, not rushed at all, and with a vibrant acoustic troposphere of pads, bells, FX, and general bliss... this is relaxing stuff, and while there's still a solid beat to it, I'm thinking it's more toe-tapping while reclining and sipping a mojito than getting up and shaking your money-maker, per se. Sir_NutS really sums things up nicely:

"This is very good and I wasn't expecting any less when I saw the remixer names. There are several traps we can fall into when we take such a simple jingle and try to expand on it: repetitiveness, including too much original content, breaking familiarity with the source, among others. None of these are present here and instead we get a remix that truly extends the arrangement in a natural way. Loved the percussion and groove, and the usage of wind instruments throughout was spotless. LOVED IT."

Spot-on; great stuff from Wes & Kris, who tackle a less common SM64 source with style & grace and cook up something unexpected, creative, & transporting!