ReMix:Dungeonmans "The Oud, The Santoor, and The Sitar" 3:43

Kids, we stan Andrew Aversa in this house. zircon's been a driven & creative powerhouse for as long as I've known him, which makes it a pleasure anytime his original VGM is arranged for a featured ReMix. And what better man to do it than timaeus222, who's regularly been inspired by zircon's music as well as Andy's own sample company, Impact Soundworks. Years before zircon created Tangledeep and Flowstone Saga, he scored another great indie Roguelike, Jim Shepard's Dungeonmans, so let's revisit Dungeonmans once again with timaeus222's chimeric fusion of ethnic instruments and electronic dubs! Never at a loss for words or light on the details, the ReMixer breaks down his tools of the trade:

"Hiya! It's been a while since you guys have had a Dungeonmans ReMix, eh? This time, I arranged "Enmired Herpetology" in a progressive Middle-Eastern dubstep style, featuring the Turkish oud (Impact Soundworks), santoor (EastWest Quantum Leap Ra), and sitar (my Zebra2 preset collection). This takes inspiration from Mervin Matthew's "PetiStep" Bollywood Harmoniums demo, and has some scattered influence from zircon's stuff (the sine wave bells in particular).

I had so much fun writing this; it only took about 10 hours to compose, and then another 12 hours to polish the details, overall spanning 3 weeks, and I think that that tells you how this is one of my more "patient" pieces -- it takes its sweet time to evolve, but doesn't necessarily try to be too flashy. Even at the climaxes, there isn't a ton of stuff going on at once, just big harmonies.

Nonetheless, there are some cool things to mention here:
- The distorted lead sound (such as at 1:02-1:12) is actually one of my electro house basses that I pitched up a few octaves.
- I tried some new, FREE effects plugins from Kilohearts Essentials, using their Transient Shaper, Filter, and/or Ring Modulator on the drums!
- There is a LOT of sine wave bell action going on, which was the backbone for the entire ReMix. It outlined the chord progressions for me and became an apt way to end things as well! I really liked it because, since it's only a single harmonic, it's almost always audible no matter the context.

It's been over 5 years since the release of Dungeonmans, but it seems to be going strong, and I hope that that continues to be the case!

...By the way, see if you can spot where I put the key change. ;-)"

Way too long since our last Dungeonmans ReMix, "Tibetan Tussle", also a timaeus222 special back in 2015 from the Dungeonmans Remanstered album. Here, I liked the lead writing at :31, the instrumentation of which reminded me of Shnabubula just a little bit. :-) Skillful drop at 1:13; after the buildup right before, I thought it was nice to quickly draw things back rather than ramping way up, a testament to the "patient" approach timaeus employed, not just in the amount of time developing the arrangement, but the overall flow and dynamics of the actual track, not going for flashy ZOMG hyper combos, just measured musical mojo. A wonderfully chill compliment to his previous Dungeonmans tribute with Truong-Son giving the source tune a denser sound and darker edge, thanks to phat basslines, lush belltones, and the instrumental triforce of "The Oud, The Santoor, and The Sitar"!

And because many good things come in threes, we can't let it escape our notice that timaeus has also arranged music from THREE zircon soundtracks. If timaeus ever does zirc's music from Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension, it may wind up being the deepest cut ever. Oh jeez, he's gonna call it "The 222nd Dimension", isn't he? :-D