ReMix:Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time "The Lost Explorer" 4:41

Merry Xmas & happy holidays from all of us at OC ReMix!

Now in its 11th incarnation, our community-driven holiday album An OverClocked Christmas v.XI was released on the 21st, featuring VGM arrangements AND holiday/wintry pieces alike. Congrats to The Coop, Dyne, & co. for another musical season's greetings - grab AOCC XI & previous volumes and get your yule on!

timaeus222 (Truong-Son Nguyen) contributed this somewhat mysterious, chilly, & glitch-hoppish ReMix of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time, which he actually arranged earlier this year back in February as well:

"Hello from WSU! It's getting colder in this second year of grad school. Seems to be a good a time as any that I managed to finish this ReMix of "Blizzard Island" (which is itself a medley of "Mt. Freeze Peak," "Sky Tower," and "Thunderwave Cave") from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon 2!

This is something special, in that I wrote and mixed most of it on a laptop with $15 Skullcandy earbuds in my dorm room, and then surprisingly, barely refined much of the mixing at all whenever I went home to Spokane. We also get some Super Audio Cart representation in the instrumentation (namely, the leads, 8-bit drums, white noise FX, some bells, etc.)! The extensive glitch section in the middle was courtesy of dblue's Glitch 2, which I would highly recommend. And as per usual, Zebra provides the backbone! The title of this ReMix refers to Scizor, the explorer who was rescued by the protagonist in the game itself. Hope you enjoy!"

It's certainly chill & incorporates some traditionally "winter" components like bells, but the melody also has an Eastern thing going on, and it's a good blend. I dig the extensive glitching, especially how it's seemingly applied at different points in the signal chain for different elements. There's a lot of attention paid to panning; a considerable amount of motion across the field, but it never feels gratuitous or distracting. Liontamer writes:

"Nice work creating a lush interpretation of a small section of the source tune, getting tons of material from a mere 20 seconds' worth of music. It's more of a winter/snow-based source rather than overtly holiday music, but we like pushing the limits as much as Truong-Son does, so it's a great VGM fit for the holidays. From the spacey areas in the opening and breakdown to the breakbeats and glitching spicing things up later on, I love the melodic and sonic variations, and the soundscape here is beautiful and fun. Props to the AOCC team for another Xmas treat this year and a strong 11-year run!"

Ditto that; fun stuff with a strong melody but also tons of creative processing work. Stay warm (where applicable), enjoy the holidays (where applicable), and dig the mix (either way)!