"Tristram in Flames"

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Diablo (PC)Composer: Matt Uelmen
2017-01-01
American Pixels
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* Note: this track is not available for free download due to the fact that it is part of the licensed American Pixels album. The project is available through Bandcamp, iTunes, Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon.

As I go through the list of tracks that made it to the album, I'm reminded that a great many of them started as requests, outside my original track list. This is one of them. While first discussing the project with friends at MAGFest some years back, Jayson "Arcubalis" Napolitano (of Scarlet Moon Productions) made a strong case for honoring Matt Uelmen, and if at all possible, arranging the "Tristram" theme from Diablo in the process. At that point I wasn't familiar, but said I'd check it out.

Listening to Tristram... man... that's a nice theme.

So yeah, shortly after hearing this I started to rack my brain as to how best to arrange it, and it felt like this would be another great opportunity to bring chip sounds to the mix. (For fun, I brought back some old Mazedude samples; you may recognize some sounds in this piece as first appearing in my "Surface of the Moon" or "The Wily Malfunction" remixes.) But beyond the chips, some crackling fire sounds were brought in to set an interesting environment (seemed fitting, given the game title), and then, I asked Ailsean - guitarist, fellow remixer, and fellow Bad Dude - to play lead. Bringing live electric guitar to the forefront over the chiptune bed just really took it to the next level, and rounded things out nicely.

Oddly enough, this is one of the first tracks I finished for the project, but works perfectly as the last track on the album. It's both aggressive and somber, dark yet mellow... and makes a nice replacement for what would otherwise be a quintissential Doom remix.

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