ReMix:Tetris "J-Type" 4:04

To make this entry about me for a spell, 2022 was a unexpectedly difficult year for my involvement in OCR. I thought a new & better day job would give me considerably more after-hours time for the music evaluation and mixpost staging I've been a constant part of. However, my mom suffered a very serious stroke in April so I haven't had my heart and mind as honed in on prepping content as I hoped to be at the top of the year. On the flip side, I was able to help four OC ReMixers level up their careers through résumé help and coaching/nagging based on the resources and strategies I employed for myself during my own job hunt. On balance, I'd say it's been a good year in terms of trying to bring value to my time in the community, even if it wasn't in the most public-facing ways.

We also recruited three new judges, with XPRTNovice understandably being busy with his bustling voice & streaming careers, Jordi Storm getting recruited by a mutual friend for an exciting professional development opportunity and needing to step down almost immediately ("I found you but only to lose you" - timing!), and DarkSim absolutely coming through in spades to make a huge impact in terms of both judging volume and in-depth feedback. Through Twitter Spaces and Discord, I've gotten to connect (and reconnect) with ReMixers and fans that I've either not previously met or hadn't gotten to chat with in a dog's age. I had the good fortune of extensively interviewing Mustin, Tim Yarbrough, Jared Dunn, Matthew "Moose" Bridges, and William Reyes as a group for The OneUps' 20th anniversary vinyl album.

We only had one album release this year, but we made it an exceptionally good one, with Wiesty and the OC Jazz Collective absolutely crushing their SNES jazz tribute EP, Mode Seven. We provided break music for GDQ's Summer Games Done Quick and Flame Fatales speedrunning & fundraising events, and we had some long overdue podcast interviews with What the Fluxtaposed and Level with Emily Reese. We've had a pretty prolific year from newcomer Neon X with 5 mixes breaking through from a bevy of all-star titles, and we've had several big composers send us appreciation and props on what the community's been cooking, including Yasunori Mitsuda, Robin Beanland, David Wise, Lena Raine, and Ben Prunty. And we turned this place -- for better or for worse -- into a spot where now some people OTHER than djpretzel have provided writeups for our 4,000+ featured ReMixes, with me taking on several, and Rexy stepping up for this year's Christmas release from MkVaff. :-)

Our 2023 plans obviously involve chugging away with ReMixes and albums (FF8 likely coming up next!), but for my part, I hope to make OCR a welcoming place for hundreds of VGM arrangers who have yet to submit something by proactively reaching out, and ideally there'll also be more scene coverage in some form by yours truly, if I can figure out how to get OBS Studio working properly (unsolicited help & advice welcome)!

But enough talk... have at you... with music! Nostalvania (Markus) is here to close out 2022 for us. He keeps it short and sweet, and so will we:

"Hi, OCR! Here is my newest remix. Tetris "A-Type" in 7/8 jazz. Hope you enjoy it!"

We do, we do! As a reminder, Tetris and Frogger are some of the rare titles where we allow non-VGM folk music source tunes to be arranged for the site, in Tetris's case, the 19th century song "Korobeiniki", a favorite of my Russian mom (of course!) which was used as the Game Boy game's A-Type theme!

This is a theme that most 8-bit babies know, so pay close attention to the subtle yet constant changes in the textures every 20 seconds or so (e.g. :51, 1:29, 1:45, 2:15, 2:29, 2:49, 3:10, 3:29, 3:50) that keep the flow fresh and don't allow this concept to rest on its laurels. Nostalvania's arrangement has elegant bass work that cuts through and adds some nice heft to the background, along with splashy, vibrant percussion, and Rhodes and guitar action. I enjoyed every bit of this piece, and every time Markus sends us great jazz like this, we have a wonderful ReMix that easily crosses over into "casual listener recommendation" territory. Nostalvania's presentation & fluidity are second to none, so be sure to share this one with family, friends, Tetris diehards, AND music snobs -- they'll ALL enjoy it!

Much like this ReMix, we hope everyone's upcoming year is exceptionally creative, varied, and smoove! ;-)