ReMix:Super Metroid "Brinstar Depths (Sin City Mix)" 4:13

Hot on the heels of another good, melodically conservative arrangement, future first-ballot OCR hall-of-famer MkVaff is down to show folks how it's done with his DENSE, bumpin' beats that sonically enhanced Super Metroid's Lower Brinstar! Inspired by the bright lights & nice vices out west, MkVaff finally revisited the world of Samus Aran here for the first time in over two decades:

"I took a trip to Las Vegas earlier last year. That trip to "Sin City" helped to tonally inspire several of the ideas I had for this set of remixes.

Looking back, it's surprising how little Metroid music I've covered in the past. I went back through and looked at my old stuff and I was like wait - HOW did I never remix anything from this soundtrack before? Glad I fixed that. It really is one of my favorite series of all time, and I've been playing it since the very first game on NES. It's sooo good. The only full Metroid remix that I completed before now was in the winter of 2000, and it was posted on OverClocked ReMix on Christmas day of that year.

I think the fact that I've gravitated towards more upbeat dance music - especially in recent years - made the Metroid soundtracks a little more challenging for me to cover. As soon as I started envisioning some slower, darker remixes, much more of the music from the Metroid series suddenly made a lot more sense for me to consider delving into creatively.

While listening to some classic SNES soundtracks as inspiration for a few new remixes I was considering, the Lower Brinstar theme from Super Metroid sounded like it would fit in perfectly with the slower, more moody feel I had in mind for some of my newer work, my "Sin City" remixes. The track has remained one of my favorites from the entire Metroid series through all these years, and there were a few iconic parts of the song I had an enjoyable time working into this interpretation of the classic theme. It's such a great track in the game, it really adds perfectly to the atmosphere and to the vibe of that section of the game. Plus, it was super fun to remix as well!

Once again, thank you for listening. Hope you enjoy!"

As soon as the beat came in, I was excited. Even though this isn't a huge melodic change, I've also never heard this theme approached with this kind of sound palette. Love the way the core beats have lots of power; they fill out the soundscape nicely. Sufficed to say, this went over like rover with the Js, with mastering maven Chimpazilla also throwing in a few ideas for future consideration alongside her plaudits for MkVaff:

"This mix sounds clean and badass! The arrangement is straightforward, mirroring the source tune in that way. Very conservative arrangement, almost too much so. Sound palette is perfect, feels like a mix of trap and synthwave. Like Larry, I would have liked a little more variation in writing, sounds and ear candy, but what is here is excellent. Some drumless/bassless breakdown would have been nice, something heavily filtered or bandpassed or wispy/creepy would be cool to break up the sameness of the bassline. But dang, this just sounds too wicked good. Let's go."

Staying in the lane of offering suggestions like Chimpa did, I liked the brief original writing that was like a countermelody from 1:03-1:14, and would have loved that to stay involved. I also would have loved to have had this take some distinct melodic or rhythmic turns, which'll sound like I didn't like Mike's approach; to me, it felt like the sound design ideas were so enjoyable that there could have also been good mileage out of other writing ideas together with these instrumentation choices, and that's just excitement over that writing potential, rather than disappointment at what we have. We Js can't resist offering suggestions and dropping creative breadcrumbs for potential follow-up! Like all of us on the panel who chimed in, judge Emunator acknowledged that sometimes groove bias leads us down the winning path, and that's A-OK:

"Mike always knows how to keep it simple and clean, even when the sounds get a little bit dirty. The arrangement is never the most ambitious in terms of sound design or radically altering the original melodies, but you always know how to set a mood, and the production is silky smooth. The Brinstar bass has just the right amount of swagger to work with the trap beat underneath it. Not much more to say, nice work as always!"

This is just MkVaff's first submission from his Sin City group of arrangements, with more to come! If they're anything like his Pulse Mixes, you're in for a treat. Actually, scratch that, it doesn't matter the style, genre, or game, if it's a ReMix by MkVaff, you're in for a treat. :-) Very cool stuff that beefed up this classic theme well; sinfully good!