#simple series

WELL, remind me to never use Drafts again, because apparently last week's post just flat out spoiled the rip of today in the URL. Tumblr, huh?

Anyhow - this request was part of why I decided to commit to this week's theme, as its a track I too wanted to cover but didn't really feel up to doing before actually disclosing the original track's impact in its own post. Through its appearance on two albums now, I think I can say pretty confidently that this is the voiceless-arrangement I've listened to most in my time due to its permanent placement in my playlists. But its addition to those playlists came as a surprise to me at first, as I'd never even once heard the rip on the channel itself. Even worse - I'd never actually listened to any of the Simple DS Series-rips whatsoever!

As I've previously alluded to on this blog, I think this is one of the beautiful things about the channel - it celebrates the art of just making things without an expected audience to flock to it. Every rip is cherished by a unique group of people because its impossible - or at least extremely unhealthy! - to listen to every single rip on the channel. After having discovered the game and its rips through this installment, I can now absolutely call myself a fan.

Like the prior rips I've covered this week, this is very much a remix through and through aiming to recreate the original song in a new context. Despite having never played the game before, its sound feels so "early DS" through and through, in a way I can only really compare to Gen 4 of Pokémon? I'd speculate that this sound comes from games transitioning from the GBA's heavy use of samples to relying more on full-on MIDI, but still undergoing a form of compression to be audible through the DS. Regardless, the rest is just an immaculately dense and thick sound - drum hits that vibrate through the compression, a bassline that becomes even heavier due to it, and synths that sound videogamey in every way possible. With the three voiceless remixes I've covered thus far, slideless was a direct translation of the original song into the style of a different track, wheras voiceless (short rave remix) was a full on reimagining with all new instrumentation. voiceless - simple ds series vol. 01 - the mahjong (¥1480), then, speaks to me as a full-on rerendition of the original track, capturing every single element of the original track's instrumentation and directly retranslating them to fit the DS vibe. It probably helps that MtH worked on this directly after already being very much involved in the original voiceless, likely allowing more of the subtle differences in instrumentation to become directly translated rather than full-on reimagined.