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Arrangement of the Week: Mucho Dollar Care a Junk CIA

AOTW EDM [1]

I’ll be taking over the Arrangement of the Week segment for this week, and it’s apt timing. Recently in my random arrangement-diving that happens every so often when I’ve had a nice glass of whiskey and some free time, I came afoul a track from Samuel “Shnabubula” Ascher-Weiss that I’d never heard before. I certainly wasn’t looking for his material, but rather searching out any rare gems from my beloved Castlevania series.

Shnabubula’s 2003 arrangement “Mucho Dollar Care a Junk CIA” comes from Akumajou Dracula for the Sharp X68000, much better known in North America as Castlevania Chronicles re-released for the Playstation and one of the more obscure of the series titles. Here, the track in question is one of my favorites of that game in particular; the dungeon theme “Etude for the Killer”, which is an odd track to begin with that I can only possibly describe best as ‘cheerfully creepy’.

The arrangement takes an already odd tune and turns it on it’s head, but in a tasteful way. Piano, acoustic guitar and woodwinds construct a melody that softens the unnerving undertones of the original tune and bring it to a more playful tone while still sticking to the source music. The result is an interesting piece that flows well, and while not particularly dynamic, still exhibits a lot of personality apart from that which was already very unique from “Etude for the Killer”. I can appreciate that Shnab took the time to give the track a bit of attention with his own flair, even if it might not be for everyone.

You can check out Shnabubula’s page on Overclocked Remix [2] for more of his remix work, or his Bandcamp [3] for his album library.