ReMix:Silent Hill "Reincarnation on Otherside" 3:13

The dark dreaded night of All Hallows' Eve is upon us, so let's scare up a flood of terror from the deadliest city on Earth! We've got a fearsome foursome of tributes to every mainline entry in Silent Hill. :-O

First up from Pixel Mixers' recent Silent Hill: Monochrome Dreams album is Lucas Guimaraes putting his modest spin on the classic titular theme from the very first game, joined by several familiar names:

• Lucas Guimaraes - Arrangement, Master
• Emunator - Production, Mix
• Stemage - Guitars
• Chromatic Apparatus - Cello

Boy, Stemage is a sight for sore eyes too! Wonderful to see (& hear) him involved in a new mixpost, and you're gonna get plenty of Chromatic Apparatus & Emunator today for sure. :-) Lucas decided to go pretty straight (no chaser) with this one:

"Hey, you know how I do something different for each cover? Apparently, this one's twist is "giving it a more conservative treatment".

Half-joking aside, I don't think there's a whole lot too interesting to say about this one. I grabbed Stemage, CA, and a mandolinist. My big goal with this track was to have it be my return to Pixel Mixers albums. And then, well, a lot happened during this and a lot happened after this. The very, very short explanation to a long story is I just wanted this track over with.

But then I thought about it later - I don't think it was just that. I know I've often harped on other people for having their arrangements be too conservative, but there's just times where the original source tune already lends itself well as a song instead of an infinite loop. "Kaze no Ne" from Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles is a great example of this. I've brought it up in DoD reviews that both arrangements I've heard of that track are very conservative. But I always emphasize: that's not inherently a bad thing if you know to make other elements stand on their own.

Okay, that's enough talking about structure. So, my original vision of this was a combo between psychedelic rock and synthwave, which we met in our weirdness. In my journey to get this track over with (delays in performers, bit of a block with the arrangement, etc), Wes (Emunator) offered to help with the mix. Funny enough, it only started as drums, but it turned into the full thing. Then he passed it to me to wrap up.

Also worth noting, this is my first track with Stemage since "Hallucinatory Province". That's, like, a 6-year gap in-between tracks. Yeah... uh, we definitely need to keep doing more psychedelic songs together, (I was going to say "psychedelic stuff", but that might have other implications.) I'm trying to make my gaps in between working with collaborators less long, whoops.

I hope you all enjoy!"

Glad to see Lucas shake off some collaborative cobwebs and also color outside his own lines a bit by not judging himself for conservative arrangement approach! As you can hear, the presentation still stands apart nicely from Akira Yamaoka's original piece thanks to the punchy beats and standout synths, but a hit's a hit, and I'd never be surprised or disappointed by anyone leaning into the melodic & moody strengths of the original theme. The part-writing, performances, and textural changes do a nice job taking this to the otherside! ;-)