If you’re a Metroid fan who’s desperate to scratch their Samus itch, synth superhero GLASYS (AKA Gil Assayas) and Auto-Tune favouring hip-hop artist T-Pain might have created the sonic balm you’ve been looking for.
As the interminable wait for a new game in the series goes on, they’ve created an impressive cover of Brinstar Underground Depths, which was originally featured in the 1994 Super Famicom/SNES classic Super Metroid.
While T-Pain’s vocals certainly add some heft to the track, we’d say that GLASYS’ playing is the star of the show here. His parts were tracked live, with all sounds - finger drums and all - played simultaneously; an impressive feat and typical of GLASYS’ virtuosic contemporary style.
The cover also shines a light on just how impressive and stylistically ahead of its time the original SNES track was, particularly when you consider the limitations of the hardware it was created on.
Says GLASYS: “Three years ago T-Pain commented on a video of mine on Reddit and said he wanted to work together. We spent some time in the studio and went back and forth on a few different ideas, but nothing really happened until I sent him this Super Metroid live cover/remix of mine which he loved and immediately agreed to add vocals to.”
GLASYS’ rig for the track included the following gear: Sequential Prophet XL, Moog Matriarch, Studio Electronics Boomstar 4075, Spectrasonics Omnisphere and Keyscape, Korg MicroKey 2, Arcadia custom controller.
Brinstar Underground Depths (Down For The Count) ft. T-Pain is available to buy now on Bandcamp - you can also get a high-quality download if you support GLASYS on Patreon - and is taken from the GLASYS album Off Screen - Video Recordings, which features both more video game covers and original tracks that were originally posted on YouTube.
