ReMix:Donkey Kong Country "Aqua Wave" 3:42

Paul Hadame (Aymeric Velozzo) follows up his DKC3 debut from early last year with a chill downtempo EDM take on the enduringly popular & infinitely permutable "Aquatic Ambiance" - no comments from the artist, but the judges were feeling it; Liontamer writes:

"I've heard so many AA mixes, so I'd love to hear other DKC themes arranged more, but when you have a hit among VGM arrangers, it can't be denied. The sound design's not innovative, but Aymeric's got solid, personalized instrumentation here. The synth lead at 1:05 takes some getting used to, feeling somewhat shrill and off-key at first blush, but it's not a big deal; getting more creative with the sound for the lead probably would have made more of a difference there.

Nice original writing from 2:07-2:27 that integrated well with the subtle references to the source before tweaking the melody at 2:27 followed by more original writing on top of the source from 2:52-3:05 and another iteration of the melody quickly before more original synth writing from 3:18 until the finish. Dynamically, this doesn't take many drastic turns, but there were effective additions and subtractions of the beats and synths to change the textures and provide contrast, plus many good integrations of original writing."

Sir_NutS adds:

"Clean, exuberant and personalized. Great sound design, fair amount of interpretation. So many times I've seen tracks trying to build ambience but end up drowned in reverb and muddy. Not here though. Sure, there's plenty of reverb but I can heard pads, sub, leads, drums, come out very clearly. That lead specially is cutting really well through the mix even though it has plenty of delay on it. Great use of filters and automation.

I wasn't a huge fan of the ending, but other than that, I can't find many faults in this remix."

I actually liked the ending - a simple sonar ping sorta conclusion... beats most fadeouts, at least :) I don't think anyone will have trouble identifying the source, and the overall ambience of "Ambience" is more or less retained, but Aymeric does a good job working in some original writing and making the genre adaptation smooth from a production perspective. Larry & Mike covered the highlights, above, so there's not much else to say: if you're looking for an immersive, hypnotic arrangement of AA that creatively takes the original in an intuitive but worthwhile direction, look no further! Very glad to see a follow-up from Paul!