KingGordo: Egg Carrier Remix (Sonic Adventure)

Growing up playing Sonic Adventure, I always viewed the Egg Carrier location as the Sonic equivalent of the recurring Bower's Castle locations of the Mario series. The giant flying fortress instilled such a sense of awe in it's design and intimidating presence, and to this day I consider it the best-designed "evil lair" archetype for Dr. Eggman's mad-scientist character. Part of what helped this location leave such a great impression on my was what I consider one of the greatest video game "evil lair" themes of all time: "A Song That Keeps Us On The Move" (take a listen to it now if you'd like:    • Egg Carrier: A Song That Keeps Us on ...  ). True to the song's lengthy title, the original arrangement instills a panicked yet firmly-convicted sense of urgency, conveying the narrative of being intimidated by the evil doctor yet knowing that you have to do whatever it takes to stop him. It's the mark of a genuinely fantastic video game theme that it is able to so clearly communicate a narrative fitting to the in-game location like this, and I could go on and on about how really the bulk of Sonic Adventure's entire OST is like this and how I consider it one of the greatest yet most underappreciated video game OSTs of all time!

For my own arrangement here, I went more along the lines of highlighting the character of Eggman himself rather than the narrative of the game. The remix is formatted as a radio broadcast of conquest, giving way to the "glitchy" audio and video effects as well as utilizing some of the late Deem Bristow's incredible voice clips from the Adventure games (without a doubt the greatest Eggman voice actor we've ever seen). Musically I think this remix differs greatly in tone from the original arrangement, focusing on a more ambient sound design with the only real thing to carry over from the original being the funky bass part heard at 1:36. The original song also features a Theremin taking the main melodies; while I by some crazy coincidence actually do own a Theremin, I (to my frustration) neither know how to really play it well enough nor how to set it up most effectively. However, I eventually realized while experimenting with other instruments that those Theremin melodies sounded absolutely gorgeous on French Horn, so thus the project became rounded out by having at least one non-digital instrument involved. Lastly, as is tradition, I tried to find a way to incorporate a musical reference to another song into the arrangement. Early on I considered working the progression at 1:21 into both Green Hill Zone and His World (theme from '06), but eventually I decided to just go with Green Hill Zone as it was the only one I could figure out a way to incorporate. This gave way to the section at 2:20, which worked out well thematically and narratively, portraying Sonic confronting Eggman.

I feel like I say this with all of my projects, but I think this is one of my favorite remixes yet. It felt a lot like my World Bowser remix, which I think is one of my best-executed remixes I've done. Regardless, I hope you enjoy this take on an obscure theme for a classic video game baddie!