ReMix:Minecraft "Meditations on a Beam of Light" 3:55

OCR judge Emunator has chosen to pursue music full-time and, as stressful of a feast-or-famine career as that can be, that's going to require a lot of meditation. But he's a proactive young man so he's already got some meditation music handy, thanks to his rich, ambient expansion on C418's titular theme for Minecraft! Emunator exercised deference to C418's structure while weaving in styles handed down from other modern music greats:

"I've always wanted to create and submit a fully ambient track to OC ReMix. While I have never actually played Minecraft, the hypnotizing soundtrack from C418 felt like an obvious place to start. I took inspiration from artists like Jon Hopkins, The 1975, Sigur Rós, and Ólafur Arnalds, who are all masters at fusing electronic and organic textures into something otherworldly and transcendent.

With this arrangement, I decided to keep the underlying piano loop nearly intact (only broken up by a small bridge of my own original writing at 1:49) and instead let all of the personalization come from sound design and original string arrangements that build on top of that foundation. My goal was to craft something fleeting, formless, and delicate. The repetitive nature of the arrangement, which may be somewhat polarizing when measured by OCR arrangement standards, was very intentional, meant to reflect a mantra that you might repeat over and over during a meditation session."

Even the judges themselves can get self-conscious about perceived repetition, so I'm glad Wes put this forward despite the reservations. At OCR, it's always OK for an arrangement to have an ever-present motif in play -- hello, it's video game music, that's cool! -- as long as the overall presentation evolves and possesses substantial dynamics, which judge MindWanderer quickly endorsed:

"I don't think this was repetitive at all. Sure, the piano motif was used extensively, but it's the glue that holds the piece together. The strings, chimes, pads, vox, FX, and probably more that I'm not consciously picking up on are dynamic throughout, never repeating and constantly taking turns. And even the piano changes things up enough that I don't think it would be an issue."

Fellow panelist prophetik music also recognized lots of developments in Emunator's textures and sound design that easily provided the substance we're looking for:

"intro swell contains the piano loop with loads of rich string pads and bells, and some really luscious writing in the winds. it really feels like the music you'd hear in a BBC documentary talking about the sun rising on a spring morning, dew dripping off the trees and birds chirping and david attenborough wheezing his way through a soliloquy about a rare parrot or something.

the suspension at 1:00 and subsequent resolution and root chord with the flutter in the flute at 1:04 is truly special.

1:53's the one part where i can really see significant shifts in the piano's writing, and it's probably my favorite part of the entire piece. it's very subtle and measured, and better for it.

2:25's choir is really nice. a simple way to reinforce the piano melody.

the track, patient as it is, takes about a half-minute to truly end after it kind of finishes what it was going for, and we hear poor david walking away as the track fades out.

what a patient and expansive arrangement, realized flawlessly and mastered very cleanly. superior work."

C418's measured compositions can't be overlooked and undersold for the way they subtly entrances listeners, and they're a great base to build from (as evidenced by other Minecraft arrangements). Judge Chimpazilla -- a gamer through and through -- was already very familiar with this theme, only through copious second-hand experience:

"My son Tom played hours and hours of Minecraft and I always felt this song was simplistic almost to the point of silliness, but it does set a calm vibe that really works in context. It really is a perfect source for Wes to do his luscious ambient magic on, and I daresay his version would be so much more preferable in-game in my opinion. It's a very repetitive source motif loop but Wes has decorated it with so many beautiful and varied elements and gave it infinitely more feels. Love it. [...]

Mixing and mastering are just right. And no, (checks files on computer) I'm pretty sure I never mastered this one. :'-D Wes did a beautiful job."

Not too shabby, Emu, for not enlisting Chimpazilla's mastering services. ;-P Beautiful work indeed; if you'd like an expansive experience that provides a fair bit of sonic fodder to bask in, the sun shines down brightly on Emunator's relaxing rendition of a modern VGM classic!