ReMix:Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia "Kill the Groove" 3:42

Dracula, he makes your body move.

Castlevania often gets the metal treatment - tends to make sense & sync with the source - but a lot of the series' melodies work quite well as jazz/funk/EDM, too. Enter Jorito (Jorrith Schaap), who layers some attempted glitch-hop & swung beats with funkdafied vocoding for an energized, invigorating Transylvanian jam:

"Another track for the loser bracket in the Castlevania: Cacophony of Incarnation compo on OCR. I was pretty inspired by Jazz Jackrabbit "Comeback of the Green Rabbit" to give glitch hop a shot. So I did some research in what glitch hop actually means and started working. Cycling to work (always good for idea generation!), I came up with some additional ideas to add some weird vocoded lyrics in there, some acoustic drums and vocal SFX from Ecclesia, and also threw in a nudge to "Vampire Killer," just because. Unfortunately, due to deadline pressure and these, it didn’t really turn into glitch hop, but I found the end result to be pretty enjoyable nonetheless.

No source breakdown this time, because it should be pretty straightforward. However, there are bits and pieces of "Wicked Child" all over the place. After working with this source for the 4th or 5th time, you really can milk it for all its worth and squeeze out some parts to inject them here and there. :)

Lyrics are notably silly because I didn’t take this track to be very serious, and anyway, it seems to fit the track."

Definitely about fun; if you're looking for poignant reflection on the meaning of life, go somewhere else, because Jorito came to get down and jump around. It's not quite glitch-hop, because there's really not much glitch, but there's PLENTY of hop, and the prominent vocoder gives it a retro vibe. Judges were smelling what the Schaap was cooking; Gario writes:

"I can recognize the sources right off the bat, but they're all incorporated together seemlessly. The arrangement is amazing. The instrumentation is eclectic (I love eclectic), and those vocoded vocals are amazing."

Sir_NutS concurs:

"Excellent textures and drum work, I'm getting some heavy Gramatik vibes here. Arrangement is top-notch, and vocoders are a soft spot of mine, so it's no wonder I love this."

And finally, OceansAndrew is pleased:

"This one was great in the contest, and it's one of my favorites from the entire event, overall. Great arrangement, production passes the bar. I'm happy this is on the site."

Me too! I can't put my finger on it precisely, but some of the production techniques here feel new relative to Jorito's previous work, and lend a more modern, EDM sheen. There's a goodly swing to things, syncopation aplenty, retro vox samples, acoustic drum fills, robocoder action, and in the midst of all that instrumentation & complexity, a respectably tight arrangement that segues gracefully & works in some effective harmonic ideas. Can't hate on that Dracula; with a little help from Jorito, he will indeed make your body move. Great stuff!