#l4ureleye

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 02/03/2024

One-Winged DJ

Season 7 Featured on: The Year of Grand Dad Sound Selection [Side A]

Ripped by duuzu, digboye, COCONABE, l4ureleye, Netyasha Roozi, Jiko Music Performed by Chase Beck

You may have noticed that I try to keep an air of suspense when doing posts on the King for Another Day tournament such as Thank You, Everybody!. That is, of course, to not spoil the victor of Season 4 Episode 1's year-defining event - but at this point, it's a bit of a fruitless endeavor to try and uphold. Because DJ Professor K's victory celebrations haven't just been contained to his awarded day-long takeover during Season 4 Episode 2 - the takeover that gave us incredible rips like AIN'T NOTHIN' LIKE A CHUNKY BEAT, 88811, Ska Cha Cha (Rotten Mix) at an absolute breakneck pace during the SiIvaSummer All-Star Festival. Because during that takeover, a new flame was kindled - a flame by the name of Jet Set Radio Evolution.

Hideki Naganuma's style of sample-filled funk music is DJ Professor K's headlining ripping source, the one most closely associated with the game that the character originates from. Yet its a style that can be expressed in so many ways, not needing to be derivative of any prior existing songs from the two Jet Set Radio games - September, for instance, is able to sound authentically Naganuma-esque whilst being built off of a song as far away from his style as possible. Jet Set Radio Evolution, then, is an entirely made-up game - its name and logo deriving from a declined proof-of-concept, but its "soundtrack" completely made up by the SiIvaGunner team. This is far from the first fake game on the channel, and not the first one to be done without much of a shred of irony (Kirby Rip Attack is due for coverage on here) - but, notably, its a fake game born specifically to keep DJ Professor K's impact on the channel alive in the Seasons past his takeover. And, well, it took a few Seasons, but during Season 7, the team started going truly ham in utilizing its true potential.

There are a number of these Jet Set Radio Evolution rips I want to cover on here, both ones from DJ Professor K's takeover and from its revitalized usage during Season 7 - but to me, it was One-Winged DJ that really showed just how much flexibility rippers have with Naganuma's style of music. One-Winged Angel has long been seen as a sort of legendary track to rip due just how extensive of a song it is, a song that has a distinctly menacing feel to it that I can't imagine is easy to translate into a rip. Rips like One Winged PSYcho - V​.​S. Sepsyrop feel like absolutely herculean endeavors, and during Season 7 in particular we saw an absolute tidal wave of rips using it, as if it were just any other meme source in the channel's backlog and not this legendary 7-minute long work of art. Hen'yoku no Piraman was the first of these I covered, and while One-Winged DJ is likely far from the last, it still manages to feel like it sticks out from the crowd in just how dense of a sound it has - likely a result of how many people contributed to its creation.

There's the obvious highlight, of course: Chase Beck, the voice of DJ Professor K himself, returns to the role with new lines to supplement the original choir in latin of the original song, and it immediately gives the rip a charm to it, especially all these years after the original event and after Chase Beck's last "needed" performance as the character had long since passed. Before that even gets to kick in, though, its hard not to notice just how many different parts of Jet Set Radio's soundtracks are utilized right from the beginning: a bassline and voicelines echoing That's Enough, samples and pacing from Sneakman, the interlude's melody broken by the noise and chaos of The Concept of Love, and all throughout using small little sound effects and one-second samples from all over the games' soundscapes.

This is the kind of rip I could sit here and dissect for pages on end, yet I believe the point has been made abundantly clear already. In a Season already FILLED with celebration of every part of SiIvaGunner's life, One-Winged DJ is an absolute flex of a celebration, reminding us all of why DJ Professor K truly earned his win whilst showing just how much there is to still be done within the ever-appealing Naganuma style. I'm beyond proud of the rippers involved in how this rip turned out, and hope that the Jet Set Radio Evolution rips continue to impress into Season 8.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 09/01/2024

Balcony Fusion Collab

Season 4 Episode 1 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume AI

Organized by l4ureleye Ripped by livvy94, Mitchell, l4ureleye, Supahstar Clod, Netyasha Roozi, RHMan, MtH, Jiko Music, Sarvéproductions, Scribblenaut19, Scribble1k, Harmony Friends

I feel like I don't talk about it enough on here, but I love SiIvaGunner's fusion collabs in just about all forms they've taken. Sure, I've expressed my preference for the older style of collab, with their chaotic and unpredictable, yet still cohesive, nature (File Select Fusion Collab is still one of my all-time favorite rips!). But that preference doesn't equate to any sort of dislike for the current style of Fusion Collabs, of songs being split cleanly into sections to allow each artist breathing room to do their own arrangement - I love these for their own reasons just the same, and am always giddy to see a new one release. To the shock of nobody whatsoever, Balcony Fusion Collab was an absolute shoe-in for a favorite rip of mine immediately upon listening to it for the first time.

By the start of Season 4 Episode 1, 0a lot of things had changed with the Fusion Collabs since they began in Season 1. They were, for a while, mainly used to denote big events and moments, like how Patched Plains Fusion Collab was one big fanfare for the start of the Christmas Comeback Crisis, or the aforementioned File Select Fusion Collab denoting the end of Season 1. We'd get more of them made for character birthdays, notably for the first birthday of SiIvaGunner mainstay character Wood Man, but eventually...I feel like the collaborations began to feel a lot more "personal" in style. With rips like Balcony Fusion Collab, it felt less like it was made to denote and celebrate some huge event, and more...just to give praise and love to one of the most important indie games ever made.

I've made no secret that I'm a huge Cave Story enjoyer, and how much the game's music and world mean to me. Those feelings have simmered overtime, but in 2019 it really was a burning love - and I was absolutely overjoyed to see the Season start off with such an incredible collaboration that seemed to be directly in touch with my feelings on the game. There's so many different styles, many of which intentionally not being based on any particular source material, which ironically makes them all fit together to the tune of Balcony so much more seamlessly...its hard to put into words, but I'm eternally going to be thankful for l4ureleye and all other collaborators for getting this video together. The sheer love for Cave Story, and the love for music as a whole, shines through here harder than ever.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 21/01/2024

8​-​bit Fish With Dreams

Season 4 Episode 1 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume AI Also on: I JUST WANNA DO CATCH SOME FISHS

Ripped by l4ureleye

"This one's for you, buddy."

There's a time and place for everything, and honestly, right now really isn't the time for me to recount everything surrounding Marrow's place in the channel's history again. I've covered tributes to the ripper twice in the past, once with the heartachingly beautiful Telling Fish Tales, and later in the bittersweet cheerfulness of Turnabout Fishters. I won't repeat myself all too much here, so I suggest you read up on those posts if you're out of the loop in regards to StreetPass Fishing's place on the channel. And so, to round this topic off for the foreseeable future, we have 8​-​bit Fish With Dreams - one more tribute, yet one that seems to come from a rather personal place.

Honestly, in the recent months, in my time doing this blog, it's been a bit...strange, slowly assimilating into the more active parts of the SiIva community. I've said it a few times before, but before making this blog I was effectively nothing but a very invested observer - I kept my interest in the channel almost entirely to myself beyond leaving a couple of YouTube comments. That has left me out of the loop on occasion, primarily with in-jokes spawned from the SiIvaGunner Discord, yet I was content in knowing that I didn't really...have much of anything to contribute. And its with that preface said that I need to clarify once again that, I don't truly know much of any details regarding people's relations to one another in the SiIvaGunner team. Nowadays, with this blog and all, I've had the opportunity to finally talk with members of the team and other fans on a regular basis, and it's been a ton of fun - yet, I'll never know firsthand just how much Marrow meant to people. And honestly, its not exactly something that concerns me to begin with - it's not my feelings to hold.

Yet, the beautiful thing about music, about art in general, is that feelings that can be so hard to convey properly through words, through stories, through recollections and retellings, can be encapsulated so perfectly within a piece. And that is represented so beautifully within every single part of 8​-​bit Fish With Dreams. It's not a flashy tribute, nor some huge collaborative sendoff - but what is is, feels like a deeply personal arrangement made out of pure love. l4ureleye applies her signature flair and expertise for creating soothing, healing soundscapes in arranging 8-bit Kids with Dreams, an under-the-radar song made by fellow chiptune artist jankybit. Past the initial minute-long opening fakeout, so few parts of the original Beauford Pond remain, yet it still manages to feel...at home, with StreetPass Fishing's other music. It asks you not to be excited, nor to cry, but rather just invites you to sit by and enjoy the ride. As was the case with the original 8-bit Kids with Dreams, it feels like a gift made from one friend to another, a toast in their honor.

I really do not wish to intrude on the lives and mental states of these rippers to any degree - yet there's little I can do to avoid being emotionally affected by rips like 8​-​bit Fish With Dreams. As is the case with art as a whole, any rip made is inevitably going to feel like it has a piece of its ripper imbued into it. And its the ones where you can feel that most, the rips that feel almost like hearing one side to a conversation, waiting for an answer, that always end up sticking with me longest. Those are the rips like 8-bit Fish With Dreams, by rippers like l4ureleye.

"u cast your line at me when I needed it most, and helped pull me out from the murky depths of my anxiety and self loathing. I needed a friend like you, and I'm glad I got to have that. Hopefully I was good to you too, u more than deserve it. Rest easy gamer"

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 21/10/2023

Bramble Blast Collab

Season 6 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume FF

Organized by Myeauxyoozi Ripped by Myeauxyoozi, eg_9371, l4ureleye, IzzyKart57, Heboyi, Memmy, Sarvéproductions, Pan, RHMan, Grambam36, C-Man, minindo

Hot off the heels of yesterday's celebration, I felt it only right to follow it up with yet more celebration. Wheras SING A SONG ABOUT HOPES AND DREAMS was part of a celebration of SiIvaGunner as a whole, today we're looking at a somewhat different celebration: the premiere of Season 6, Bramble Blast Collab, is an enchantingly unique collab even amidst the channel's long history of doing them.

Kickstarted by our good friend tunedlink back in Season 1, collabs like the File Select Fusion Collab were initially labelled as just that - "fusion" collabs, a carryover from the Kirbtunes remix project they were imitating. These proved to be immensely popular and loved by the community, and so the "fusion collab" branding stuck around, eventually morphing into a whole new, more clearly-segmented form of collaborative projects. I'm yet to cover any of these on the blog, but Season 7's Shop Fusion Collab is an excellent example of these collabs - each segment lovingly crafted by teams of rippers with visuals to match. In comparison, the old style of fusion collab may seem a bit messy, a bit unfocused and noisy. But amidst that noise, these have always been able to serve as incredible celebrations of so many parts of SiIvaGunner all at once.

While File Select Fusion Collab served to celebrate the good times had across Season 1, looking back upon all of its events and memes in a sentimental way, Bramble Blast Collab has always felt more...mixed, in its messaging. It has old memes, of course, be it Space Jam, Soulja Boy, or the introductory clip of Chad Warden's holy ghost, but...its filled to the brim with so much more, sources from the channel's recent history like Big Time Rush, Yankin' and Astronaut in the Ocean, amidst sources that are basically never seen on the channel such as Baldi's Basics and Smiling Friends. Its all delivered at a pace that's insanely fast even for the standard of these kinds of collabs - the result is a noise collage not just of SiIvaGunner's history, but of its possible future - the jokes we're yet to hear the full potential of, mixed in with small snippets of our old memories.

Althesame, it carries a slight sense of melancholy to it buried underneath all those funny memes: The track its built on *is* Bramble Blast, after all, one of the most emotionally poignant pieces of retro VGM out there. After rummaging around a zillion sources for most of the rip, the four-minute mark feels as if the song is breaking free of itself with the core melody re-emerging at full force, gradually built up by the increased prominence of the backing melody from the three-minute mark. Season 6, even as early as this, had the feeling of sorrow sort of engrained in it from the announcement of GilvaSunner - the original channel SiIvaGunner is made in tribute of - officially shutting down later that year. The fallout of which wouldn't quite be understood until I've won, but at what cost, but even as far back as the Season's premiere it was as if we were all gearing up for the inevitable.

Bramble Blast Collab, with its noise, its barrage of memes and its enchanting core throughline, remains one of my favorite season premieres the channel has ever done, and I feel it's not appreciated nearly enough for just how incredible of a collaboration it is. My hat goes off to the dozen rippers involved in its creation, for setting the stage perfectly for the ride Season 6 would end up being - althewhile keeping the spirit of the old Fusion Collabs alive and kicking.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 21/12/2023

Lifelike Waterway

Season 4 Episode 1 Featured on: FIRST STRIKE ~ SiIvaGunner: King for Another Day Tournament Original Soundtrack VOL. 1

Ripped by l4ureleye

Every since the year the King for Another Day tournament came to a close, the Christmas season has always brought back memories of it. It was such a huge event, and only really happened to land around the Christmas season due to delays in production, yet it all felt so befitting - the kind of comforting, communal feel of the holidays just fit a tournament of this ilk so well. And while yesterday, with 11 Minutes of City Pop, I wrote about the tournament's beloved silver medalist, today we're going lower down in the ranks - to a combatant many thought went out before he could've shown his true potential.

To say that Cave Story means a lot to me would be an understatement - I alluded to it earlier this month with Whip Fortress, but its a game whose aesthetics and music have stuck with me and thousands of people all over the world for so many years. We all knew Quote would have bangers in the tournament, yet by the time he was up to bat, he'd barely had any arrangements up on the channel to truly show his stuff. That's not to mention the fact that his source list even included other early-2000s indie games, yet...before that could be taken advantage of, the voting was settled and he was out for the count. When his catalogue of arrangements started to finally be rolled out, there was an era of...sorrow, in their comment sections. And Lifelike Waterway was no exception to that - to me back then, it was the moment that it truly sunk in that Quote was down and out.

The dour circumstances of the rip were not something that the team could've ever planned around - the arrangements were obviously made far in advance before the voting actually happened. Yet as also happened with Geno and DEARLY BELOVED..., his loss added a magical form of ambience to the music, a secret spice to turn a chill arrangement into a full-on tribute in his memory. I've talked at length about l4ureleye's ripping prowess on the blog before with rips like Hopes and Divinity+ and SICKO TALE - she has an unparalleled ability to create entire worlds and galaxies in your mind, out of nothing but her sound. From the mashups to the remixes, she's uncontested in the art of lo-fi, music that sounds relaxing yet simultaneously gives off the feeling of venturing into an endlessly-deep cavern. With KFAD, she was able to flex her powers to absurd levels, and if you've been listening along you may already know what I mean.

The original Lifelike Waterway already marked one of the most intense emotional points of Cave Story, yet Lifelike Waterway is able to spin that melody, that soothing yet haunting tune into something else entirely. Its far from a faithful arrangement, yet the new atmosphere it creates is just so...gripping. Its hard to put into words the emotions it makes me feel, yet its palpably a blend of the feelings I still have from Cave Story, and the feelings from Quote's fallout in the tournament - yet, the arrangement doesn't fill me with sadness, either. Its more like...the feeling of taking long, deep breaths. The feeling that everything's going to be okay.

...Look, it's difficult to find many specifics to comment on with an arrangement that's as thorough and all-encompassing as this. All of this is really just to say, that Quote's part played in the tournament really highlighted just how emotionally attached many of us have become to this silly little music project, how SiIvaGunner has brought new emotional meaning to characters they didn't even create - and, most of all, that l4ureleye is a genius.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 06/11/2023

God's PS2

Season 5 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume D

Ripped by l4ureleye

During the spooky times last month, I covered the work of Netyasha Roozi with Play in MissingNo's Station, as part of a series of several PlayStation-console start-up remixes. All of those are excellent! Yet in my digging, I ran across a tangentially related, yet not quite aiming to be spooky, rip - one by long-time favorite ripper of the channel, l4ureleye. Needless to say - I was immediately intrigued

And yeah - God's PS2 falls in line with a lot of l4ureleye's prior work, setting up an immensely chill, dreamlike soundscape much like Sidelined Symphony or The Saltwater Mii, though this time there's an obvious extra wrinkle: The PS2 Startup sound isn't a full length song, meaning this is less of a mashup and more of a full-on remix. The iconic sound pitched up and down, along with a sprinkling of other PS2 BIOS sounds, are used as the backing to Drake's God's Plan, and it creates such an interesting soundscape as a result.

There's fun touches all around, in how the sounds both replicate and build on the vibe of the original God's Plan, but its really just a pick I included for the sheer vibes of it alone. I wish I had more to say, but on long days like today, sometimes all I can tell ya is to go give it a listen for yourselves.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 28/10/2023

Sidelined Symphony

Season 3 Featured on: The SiIvaGunner Spooktacular Halloween Horror Special Collection '17​-​'19

Ripped by l4ureleye

Part of Spooktacular Week! ● Requested by fezaki (Discord)

In all these Halloween events, there's obvious jokes that we all know to expect. Typical spooky music from video games, Five Nights at Freddy's the 8-BIt Beast, horror media, David S. Pumpkins, and so on and so forth. The events aren't always quite so all-encapsulating as to *only* be spooky-themed rips, but broadly speaking you know what to expect - the kind of rips I've posted in the last few days, that is. But amidst all of this, some rips get rather creative in the ways they celebrate the Season. And yes, I do know how ironic it is for me to be praising creativity when I'm here making my fourth post covering a Stickerbush Symphony rip, after Satinpanties Symphony, Stickerbrush State of Mind and Bramble Blast Collab. Look - they're all too good not to talk about, okay?

Sidelined Symphony falls in line with the many other excellent lo-fi rap mashups done by ripper l4ureleye, yet upon playing you'll no doubt recognize the man behind the vocal performance. Early in 2018, as Season 3 was just getting into gear, a very peculiar meme started circulating all around the internet - that of Burger King Foot Lettuce. It was borderline inescapable during the time, all thanks to the bizarrely straight-faced narration of such a ridiculous story by content creator Chills. The guy is seemingly very well off, with his own channel sitting above six million subscribers, and the channel he narrated the video for being similarly well off, yet...there's no doubt that being the target of a large-scale meme basically just about making fun of his voice likely got to him, mentally.

I can't speak to anything concrete about the situation, granted, other than that it seems like Chills is taking it well nowadays (and maybe always was) and is even embracing it through things like his cameo on Smiling Friends. Althesame, when August rolled around later in the same year, Chills released his first venture into music with Sidelined, a rather melancholic and openly emotional rap tune. With lyrics like "Been trying to get away for some time - part ways with the life I chose" - it gives the feeling that Chills was rather conflicted about the situation he was in.

All of that is to say, that seeing Chills' top comment in Sidelined Symphony's YouTube upload, thanking the SiIvaGunner team for the arrangement...it really warms my heart, and feels almost like a reconciliation. Even if there wasn't ever any true bad blood between Chills and the memes made of him, the rip serves as a reminder to us viewers that the guy is MORE than a walking meme - that he's an actual creative, a human being worth loving and cherishing. And that's easier to do than ever through the rip - Bramble Blast's emotionally poignant instrumentation and progression lends itself incredibly to the raw honesty of rap lyrics as the aforementioned Stickerbrush State of Mind already demonstrated, yet its given an entirely unique vibe in Sidelined Symphony thanks to all the other tweaks made to it. The lowered pitch of the original song, the sound effect samples from Super Smash Bros. Melee and Brawl, and the way the song knows when to let Sidelined take more emphasis in the song during the midway point of the rip.

It all comes together to a rip that's absolutely swirling with emotions in so many ways, and in so many directions - empathy and respect for Chills, nostalgia for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and the SiIvaGunner channel itself, and utmost admiration for the rippers that continue to make such incredible music out of love for the internet. Sidelined Symphony is, beyond being one of my favorite rips to listen to, just one of my favorite rips for all that it stands for. Peace and love on planet earth. And foot lettuce from Burger King.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 01/01/2024

I'm Here to See...

Season 3 Featured on: SiIvaGunner's Highest Quality Rips: Volume AI

Ripped by l4ureleye

Pop the champagne bottles, its a new year - AND time for the blog to feature its shortest rip yet! Yet even at just 15 seconds of runtime, there's a decent bit to talk about with I'm Here to See..., and its had a surprisingly well remembered legacy on the channel. It remains nothing but a silly, pretty absurd in-joke on the channel, yet its one that's somehow stuck for a lot of people.

In the time it took to read that above paragraph, you've likely already had the time to watch or listen to the rip itself, and may be thoroughly confused or flabbergasted as to what just occurred. Similar in spirit to rips like Windows Wonga Wappa and Big Sus Chocobo, this is a rip that's pretty much a direct tribute to a prior-made YTP effort, this time referencing "im here to see doom" by former YouTube user 3pac shakir. There's...not much of any documentation of how big the channel was, and going by the reactions to I'm Here to See... when it was uploaded, I'm going to guess that it really wasn't an all too well-known edit - just something silly that l4ureleye landed upon and decided to make an edit of. Well, an edit is what we got, and it both confused and amused an entire audience of baffled SiIva fans on its upload.

The repeating section from the intro of MF DOOM's Rapp Snitch Knishes, the repeating questions with varying pitch going back and forth, the loud audio and video distortion as the video's cut off - it's a nonsensical edit that I just cannot get enough of. In preparation for this post, I went through all 20-something iterations and variations of these "im here to see doom"-edits up on the channel, and had a huge grin on my face the entire time. Its simply impossible for me to pick a favorite when the concept is this stupid, silly, yet thoroughly funny althesame.

I get the feeling that newer SiIva fans reading this may be just as, or more confused than back when I covered Sex - Steve Harvey. But look - just go into the playlist yourself, okay? I promise it's way funnier than it has any right to be - and somehow, its kind of mysterious, weird feel played perfectly into the overall tone of Season 3 as a whole. I'm Here to See... is one of the most nostalgic rips of the Season for me just due to how much I was left flabbergasted thinking about it, and how much its future edits would continue making me laugh.