"Space Garden"
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Download MP3"Thank you so much for taking the time and energy to do such a wonderful remix! I thoroughly enjoyed the new approach from start to finish. I am humbled and grateful that you honored one of my favorite compositions in such a beautiful way."
~ Aubrey Hodges, Quest for Glory IV Composer
Over the years, my colleagues in the remixing scene have, well, teased me for my excessive use of pitch bends. Well, guys, I can't help it; it's a staple of the tracking art form, and on top of that, I grew up playing trombone, so the sliding motif is in my blood.
That said, this particular track, Erana's Garden from Quest for Glory IV, already has a ridiculous number of pitch bends in the source material, so this one is not my fault! :) Rather, this remix came out as a commission request from my American Pixels Kickstarter Campaign. Not only did djpretzel request a Comix Zone remix, but I also received a commission to arrange a track from the Quest for Glory franchise, with a special emphasis put on the Erana's Garden theme. While I'd never played this particular game, I was a fan of other oldschool Sierra ventures, and the original music here was written by American composer Aubrey Hodges, so the request fit the bill. And yes... there were a lot of pitch-bends in the source, so whether it was intentional towards me for that reason or not, I honored it and stayed pretty close to the original (although, yes, I did add a lot of notes).
As to the genre, this is something I've been wanting to explore for a quite a while, and that is a blended stylistic homage towards the following material from the glory days of tracking:
- Space Bar, by Virgill
- Space Circus, by Drax
- Sexy Satellite, by Beek and Mick Rippon
Notice how each track has something to do with space? And, these three tracks all have elements I enjoy; the jazzy aspect, the zappy percussion, the reliance on chip-based leads... and yeah, I've been wanting to tap into each of those factors for a while. This track presented a fun opportunity to do that, in that the theme could adapt to the genre and also allow me a chance to solo and go nuts a bit while simultaneously staying true to the chords and notes of the original.
So, like most of my remixes, this track accomplishes several things at once. It's a commission, it's an homage, another American composer is honored, and it's a fun remix that takes a classic theme from gaming and goes crazy with it for just over 4 minutes. I hope you like it; enjoy!
