Futebol Arte: World Cup Tribute EP / Futebol Arte: World Cup Tribute EP / Futebol Arte: World Cup Tribute EP

ReMixers:

Eino Keskitalo (1)
Chernabogue (2)
Ivan Hakštok (3-5)
streifig (3)
jnWake (4)
Mak Eightman (6)
Brandon Strader (7)

Futebol Arte: World Cup Tribute EP
Comments from album director Ivan Hakštok & ReMixers
Album freely available at http://ocremix.org

Ohayoooo, I'm Ivan Hakštok and I'm the one behind directing this miserable little pile of ReMixes. Or maybe an awesome little pile of ReMixes? I'll let the listeners decide.

I don't remember exactly when I first had the idea for this album, but I need to thank DarkeSword who kept insisting I direct it (which was probably just a ploy for him to get some Mega Man Soccer remixes, oh, sneaky you). As a big fan of football/soccer/fussball/futebol/nogomet/whatever-you-call-it, I thought it would be nice to pay a musical tribute to the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Football/soccer games are a bit underrepresented as far as remixing is concerned, even though they have lots of really good soundtracks, and I hope this album will help remedy that a bit.

This album features seven tracks and seven artists, maybe not enough to fit a football team of eleven players, but enough to rock. I'll also add that I had no idea that the titles of the songs would make it so easy for me to put them in an order which describes a road to the top of the world: from playing around in the park to achieving a legendary status. I hope you enjoy it!

- Ivan Hakštok

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. "Playing in the Park" (Tehkan World Cup)
Arranger/Performer: Eino Keskitalo
Composer: Tsukasa Masuko
Source: "Demo"

Ivan Hakštok: Eino's playful arrangement is the perfect way to kick this album off (see what I did there? Kick off, because football matches start with a kick-off? OK, I'm not that funny). The lo-fi sound and synth elements blend nicely with the guitar, and Eino did a nice twist to the source, which is less bouncy and more straightforward.

Eino Keskitalo: I'm not a huge football fan, but I like to kick the ball around with my daughter.

We found Tehkan World Cup via leafing through 1001 Video Games You Should Play Before You Die on the page next to Super Mario Bros., which is one of our favourites to play together. It's a 1985 arcade game and the writeup made it sound like a great head-to-head game I'd never heard of before. Turns out the gameplay relies on trackball controllers to do all sorts of neat stuff with the ball. Sounds great, but we don't have one (or two)!

So, actually playing the game will have to wait, but the short intro ditty was pretty catchy. When the World Cup EP recruitment thread came up, I decided to try to do an arrangement of it (the concept & the timing was too good to pass up).

To speed things up, I used an existing piece - one we made with the daughter as a Christmas present to her mother - as the basis of the production. My modest guitaring was done in five takes, and I picked the best bits from each, doing some doubling & other cheating in the solo part. Overall, I tried to work in broad strokes and take in any happy accidents.

2. "Ball of Steel" (Mario Strikers Charged)
Arranger: Chernabogue
Composers: Mike Peacock, Darren Radtke, Chad York, Scott McFadyen, Davor Vulama
Source: "Road to the Striker Cup"

Ivan Hakštok: When Chernabogue claimed his track, I expected to receive either something fully orchestral or rock, so I was quite surprised with this blend of electronica and orchestral elements. Considering that the rest of the album is pretty guitar-oriented, this is a nice change of pace, and I'm sure people will enjoy it.

Chernabogue: Though I'm not a fan of sports/soccer games, I played a lot of MSCF with my friends. We love this game (and we love destroying other teams with Bowser).

This EP was the opportunity to pay tribute to a game I love, and to music I really think is underappreciated.

I planned to mix brass that sounded epic/encouraging with electro elements, and I think it worked quite well.

Enjoy that fun little EP. It was a really interesting idea, and I'm glad I could contribute! :D

3. "Looking Towards the Future" (Pro Evolution Soccer 3)
Arrangers/Performers: Ivan Hakštok, streifig
Composer: Norikazu Miura
Source: "Highlights"

Ivan Hakštok: Ah, Pro Evolution Soccer, the series I first encountered back in the early 2000s (2001, I think). I thought it would be nice to give PES some tribute, so I decided to cover the highlights theme from PES 3.

The original is a synth tune in the style of Vangelis's theme for the 2002 World Cup, but I went in with a rock twist, though I did keep some synth work in there. Finally, I contacted my buddy and the current Dwelling of Duels admin Mikhail Ivanov (streifig) in order to get some amazing guitar soloing.

4. "Hope Never Walks Alone" (Mega Man Soccer)
Arranger: jnWake
Performers: jnWake, Ivan Hakštok
Composers: Toshio Okamoto, Norihiko Togashi, Kenichi Tomizawa
Sources: "Rock Field," "Wood Field," "Cut Field," "Skull Field," "Pharaoh Field," "Danger," "Wily Field," "Needle Field," "Title"

Ivan Hakštok: jnWake keeps blowing my mind with his arrangements. Even though this song uses almost every original tune in the Mega Man Soccer game, it feels like a cohesive song. I'm glad that I was able to contribute some guitars to the song. More than 9 minutes of awesome rock goodness makes for a great tribute to a lesser remixed game from the Mega Man series!

jnWake: When Hakstock mentioned the idea of doing an EP for the FIFA World Cup, I quickly thought of the idea of remixing Mega Man Soccer, since I played quite a bit of that game when I was a kid. However, to be honest, I didn't remember a single song from the OST!

Anyway, I searched for the OST online and noticed that a lot of the tracks were pretty good, so I decided to make a remix that used a lot of them! I know OCR isn't fond of medleys, so I tried my best to make a cohesive arrangement using all the different melodies and chord progressions I could extract from the sources!

For the style, since it's Mega Man and Football (sorry USA), I definitely had to go for something rock-oriented. Most of the sources were also energetic, so I mostly went for a quick rock-ish style, but I added a few prog-ish transitions here and there and some heavy sections in the middle of the song!

Also, Mr. Hakstock played guitars for this song, but you may notice some parts are sampled, since I used a mix of real and fake guitars.

I hope you enjoy the arrangement!

Finally, source breakdown so that people can see where I used each source:

0:00-0:34: Piano line and progression taken from "Mega Man Field." The arpeggios leading to the next section are from "Wood Man."
0:35-1:32: Both sections are based on "Wood Man Field." First the intro and then the melody that plays over the intro.
1:33-1:55: Section based on the third (?) part of "Mega Man Field." The melody played by the bright synth is from "Cut Man Field."
1:56-2:19: Chorus of the song. First melody is from "Skull Man" and the second melody is from "Pharaoh Man."
2:20-2:54: More "Wood Man." There's also a synth solo there, played by me!
2:55-3:18: Variation on the 1:33-1:55 section, based on "Cut Man Field" and "Mega Man Field."
3:19-3:29: Transition using the piano theme from the intro.
3:30-3:57: Melody from "Danger" plays on the synth. A muted guitar plays the intro from "Wily Field."
3:58-4:24: Heavy section! Guitar is a slight variation of "Wily Field" intro.
4:25-4:57: Based on "Needle Man Field."
4:58-5:24: Back to Wily! Another synth solo too!
5:25-5:50: Based on another section from "Wily Field."
5:51-6:14: Chord progression and melody taken from "Title" theme.
6:15-6:48: Guitar solo based on "Danger" melody, mixed with "Title" theme chord progression.
6:49-7:10: Another transition using "Mega Man Field!"
7:11-7:59: Repeat of the chorus.
8:00-8:29: Ending! Based on yet another section from "Wily Field." Last few chords repeat the "Wood Man" melody from the beginning of the song.

5. "Spotlights (Time to Shine)" [Battle Soccer 2]
Arranger/Performer: Ivan Hakštok
Composers: Yoko Watanabe, Daisuke Tamura
Sources: "Ice Rink," "Staff Roll"

Ivan Hakštok: This was the first of the two mixes I made for this EP because other people were too lazy to claim tracks. xD

While trying to find sources for the EP, I must've listened to hundreds of songs from soccer video games, including songs from some really obscure games like this one (I think it was Japan-exclusive). Originally, I wanted to do a metal song, but my guitar just didn't fit in the mix... and then I went with the distorted synth route and it sounded awesome! I tossed in some dance saws in there too, because I'm crazy. Hope you like it!

6. "The Champion" (Kunio Kun no Nekketsu Soccer League)
Arranger/Performer: Mak Eightman
Composers: Kazuo Sawa, Taku Urabe
Source: "Ending"

Ivan Hakštok: Mak brings his usual style of rocking guitars. The acoustic break is a nice change of pace, and the song will rock your socks off. While it doesn't stray too much from the source, there are enough ideas to keep things fresh, and fans of heavy pumping guitars will love this one.

Mak Eightman: FIFA WC 2014!! Haha! First time, after 12 years, my country going to WC! AAAnd! We have almost SAME teams in our group... We'll see... Last time was EPIC fail.

This game was known in my country as Goal! 3. Actually because of this game, my attention to VGM became kinda obsessive... so I had to remix that someday.

I'm not pleased with acoustic guitars. Still, this pedal sounds pretty good, so I think more exp with EQ and compression and it will be close to perfect.

Overall, experimenting again! Best of all!

7. "Legendary" (Inazuma Eleven)
Arranger/Performer: Brandon Strader
Composer: Yasunori Mitsuda
Source: "The Legendary Inazuma Eleven"

Ivan Hakštok: I had no doubts Brandon would bring his A-game to this album. A great source tune from the legendary Yasunori Mitsuda and a great cover. The intro may mislead you, as this is a great rocking tune, with mellow instruments added on top of guitars, which makes for a nice contrast and an interesting song. This is a perfect song to close this album.

Brandon Strader: *fakes injury*