Posted 2015-03-23, evaluated by the judges panel

Been awhile! We last heard from Emunator over two years ago, but he's been working intermittently on this sweet EDM/ambient Metroid Prime ReMix since before then:

"I haven't submitted any of my own remixes in over 3 years now, but I have been slaving away at this track on a semi-regular basis since December 2011, trying to get it to a point where I'm happy with it. It's come a long way, and, admittedly after such a long gestation period, there are some areas where I'm still not totally satisfied, but at some point you have to call it a day and say "I've done enough." This likely isn't the last time I'll touch "Phendrana Drifts"... there's really so much content to be pulled from the original, I can't possibly fit all of my ideas into one remix! Stylistically, this plays similar to my previous submission, "Footloose Falls," by incorporating a house/electronic groove into an ambient/ethnic foundation, but this time I tried to flesh this out into a longer, more diverse arrangement that covered a lot more territory. This includes an extended ambient intro, solo guitar outro, and a cameo section from Super Metroid, integrating the bassline and a brief melody from "Brinstar - Plant Overgrowth Area" during one of the breakdowns. BIG PROPS to Ergosonic for coming through at the 11th hour to provide live recordings so you all don't have to listen to my crappy sampled guitars. :-) He's such a talented guitarist and it's always a pleasure working with him. I've gotten endless feedback from the likes of Flexstyle, Chimpazilla (sorry I still left in the crash cymbal that you hate so much!) Radiowar, Theophany, DjjD, timaeus, Phonetic Hero, Will, DaMonz... and so many others. You guys rock. It feels good to put this track behind me after so many years. Hopefully it's up to par! I promise to try and ramp up my musical output in the coming years."

Looking forward to it! I can relate to getting caught up on a mix to the point where months become years; inevitably, when eventually released, it's difficult for any such piece to carry the burden of that huge time investment and all those expectations, but it's still a therapeutic catharsis - and just a plain old good feeling - to finally get it OUT. In this case it also makes for a damn good listen for US - introing with an ambient landscape peppered by rising bell arpeggios, piano enters early in a delicate, vaguely Thomas Newman fashion. Acoustic guitar joins the chill vibe as alien winds whisper across the stereo field, then things pick up & a downbeat takes over @ 1'27" - really cool delayed chromatic percussion rise/fall patterns, and a wide & thick bass part. Interestingly, a different bass patch/texture is used in a subsequent section, and more interesting still is the extended solo acoustic guitar outro of sorts - if not unorthodox per se, then at least slightly LESS orthodox arrangement decisions, and I think they both work well. Larry Oji agrees:

"A little bubblier, a little clubbier. I really enjoyed the sound design and how various SFX and nods to Metroid Prime's atmosphere were used here. Nice combination of these themes as well. The brief Super Metroid 'Brinstar' usage was a nice touch. Nice close by Ergosonic at 4:35 also. This was an interesting arrangement that constantly evolves and never stays in one place. It hits a nice middle ground of significantly personalizing the arrangement through the instrumentation and genre changes, yet remaining melodically conservative enough so that folks who go "ZOMG I can't handle drastic changes" at our more liberal ReMixes should still observe the connections to the source tunes. (They need to broaden their tastes more. ) Smart stuff throughout."

Ditto all that; great mix that takes some interesting turns & uses texture to its advantage rather effectively. Great to see more music from Wes, and greater still to hear that more is on the way!