ReMix:Perfect Dark "dataDyne Global HQ" 5:10

We've now got all three heavy-hitting tracks from ThePlasmas' recent Nintendo 64 EP, 64 Ways to Die! After Turok and Doom 64 were represented, ThePlasmas' frontman Mauricio Plasma goes out with a bang by submitting his high-octane tribute to Perfect Dark!

"I loved GoldenEye 64 so much that I really wanted a sequel. However, when the 007 franchise was taken by another studio, and then RARE announced the beginning of a new franchise called Perfect Dark, I just couldn't let it pass. I almost begged my mom to buy it. She liked the design of the protagonist and watched me play the game every chance she could. This song was quite a challenge. ️>_< It was recorded to participate in the Summer of 64 event produced by GameGrooves, a 3-month long celebration of N64 video game music featuring GameGrooves VGM artists!"

Much love to this game, because when Rare chose NOT to use the James Bond license to make a sequel to GoldenEye 007, the team took that chicken scratch and made chicken salad with the introduction of enigmatic agent Joanna Dark and created another legendary game. On the music side, Graeme Norgate got to slip away from the Bond sound palette and take things in a darker, moodier direction that immediately stood out at the time in contrast to GoldenEye. Mauricio embraced that energy here but put a very personalized stamp on it by amping up the music of the opening level as you infiltrate dataDyne headquarters. Judge prophetik music weathered ThePlasmas' storm long enough to weigh in:

"wall of sound to begin. [...] 0:41 is where the full band comes in. the arpeggio is in the lead guitar initially (a little surprising the drums didn't ape the original's rhythmic elements), and that moves into the 'melody' of the original which really isn't much of a melody. it stays balls to the wall for a while as it maneuvers through the original's theme elements. i liked how the oboe and bassoon's melodic material in the original was handled in the guitar here.

we finally get a break at 2:24, really just from the beat as it's still going pretty strong. there's another tom groove coming out of this section, and we finally get a texture change when we get some harmony in the lead guitars. [...]

3:27 has the melodic line in a lower octave with the faster arpeggiated line above it layered in. most of this section is recap of material from earlier without significants change to how it's presented, especially 4:00. there's a build at 4:32 and then we get one more short section of rawk before it's done. [...]

there's not a lot of dynamic contrast in this overall - it's pretty heavy the whole way through. that said, i think overall the mixing and mastering sounds good [...], and the arrangement does a decent job handling the (pretty non-melodic) source material in a way that's recognizable and isn't just a cover. so this is a pass by me."

Much like his previous pair of OC ReMixes, Mauricio really shines at taking these iterative, pattern-heavy sources and applying his brand of expansively epic & dynamic heavy metal! You don't have to be a secretive super spy to roll with this track, but it helps!