ReMix:Eggerland Mystery "Eggerland Swagger" 4:20

Nothing but love for our featured mixposts from The Impact of Iwata album! The project's opening track represents chapter 1 of Nintendo Force editor-in-chief Lucas M. Thomas's book of the same name, which covers Iwata's childhood as well as his burgeoning years as a hobbyist and early career programmer at HAL Laboratory. As far as I'm aware, Eggerland Mystery only credits 3 people, including composer Hiroaki Suga, but this initial entry of the Eggerland/Adventures of Lolo series was an important early franchise for HAL, which Iwata eventually came to lead in 1993. Jorito kicked off the album with a catchy, funky jam of Eggerland Mystery's main theme and subsequently honored the ReMixer's personal favorite old school system, the MSX:

"When the Impact of Iwata companion album project was announced, I was immediately drawn to the tracklist and especially Iwata's early period at HAL Laboratory. I grew up with the MSX home computer, and a good amount of now-beloved HAL games made it to that platform. I have very fond memories of two HAL games in particular: Rollerball (a pinball game) and Eggerland Mystery, the latter being a puzzle game that started the Eggerland series and later evolved into multiple sequels and the Lolo games. I played both of them for countless hours, and the music of Eggerland Mystery has been stuck in my brain for decades. So when the album project started, there simply was no choice... I *had* to pay tribute to both Eggerland Mystery and my MSX roots.

Eggerland Mystery doesn't have much music, a jingle or two and a 30-second main loop during the game, all played on a 3-channel PSG. So, stretching it out into a full remix was a bit of a challenge. I decided early on I wanted to give it a swinging feel and some swagger, and I wanted to honor both the place on the tracklist and theme of the album/book by using chiptune sounds. I sampled the drums of my MSX-MUSIC expansion (a Yamaha YM2413) from my MSX, slapped some processing and swing on it, added a lot of FM and chiptune instruments, did some layering, figured out it needed a chiptune solo too, and this is what came out. A bit eclectic perhaps, but I think it fits the source and the album concept.

Arrangement-wise, the source track consists out of 3 square wave channels, a bass, a lead part, and a harmony. All of these are used liberally throughout the track; sometimes as-is, sometimes just the harmony or lead part playing solo, sometimes just the bass. And sometimes in an embellished form with extra notes and/or a healthy amount of swing. Also various smaller phrases and patterns were sprinkled throughout the track; see if you can spot them all!

It was a lot of fun to go way back to my childhood nostalgia and remix a song from my beloved 8-bit MSX computer for an OCR album. Hope you enjoy!"

Some games have champions around here, but when it comes to *platform* champions, Jorito's the only one out there, representing more than half of OCR'S MSX arrangements and now one game away from covering 10 different titles from the preeminent global early-80s home computer standard. Being a platform evangelist may be a weighty task, but Jorito makes it look easy with a track that's cooler than the other side of the pillow. For anyone that needs to study how a groove that's established from the opening second can stay interesting the whole way through, you've got your homework assignment right here. :-) Besides opening things up with lush padding until :28, Jorito expertly expanded upon Suga's main theme, slowing things down but taking us through an electronic smorgasbord of sounds (including the MSX drums) that consistently kept the textures evolving. The dropoff at 1:45 into a mellower section shifted the mood without going too dark before Jorito reprised the core groove at 2:24 and further shifted into a comping-style synth soloing from 2:54-3:13 that felt right out of djpretzel's playbook. The track bookends perfectly at 3:51, closing things out in a similar way to how this grabbed our attention at the start. Very nice work from the scene's king of MSX tributes, and a wonderful tip of the cap to HAL Labs' key platform for original games prior to the NES! With a bright sound and fun, funky energy, Jorito's contribution was the absolute perfect opener for The Impact of Iwata album! (Can't wait to hear how it sounds in the audiobook. :-D)