TIP OF THE ICEBERG: SINISTER SUPER MARIO 64 SOUNDSCAPES

You know, they say every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized. I'm sure you've heard them say it, too. Across the internet and thousands of brains inspecting their fuzzy N64-era memories for paranormal oddities, you've heard it. But do you believe it? No, trust me: no one joins the faithful overnight. Personalized game cartridges are the granddaddy of them all: the cloaked and pressurized Marianas Trench beneath the Super Mario 64 Iceberg. This variant of the popular "tip of the iceberg" meme documents Super Mario 64 rumors, creepypastas, and some outright fabrications, but it follows its template by getting more sinister and claustrophobic the deeper you go.

Tip of the Iceberg: Sinister

Sure, many are aware of "parallel universes" and King Bomb-Omb's dud of a revival, but it's only once you explore the rabbit hole that is the July 29th, 1995 build that your journey down the iceberg grows too momentous—and you eventually find yourself truly believing in Wet-Dry World's negative emotional aura, the insidious Wario Apparition, and the indisputable fact that everyone's Super Mario 64 cartridge contains an intelligent AI that tweaks the game's layout in response to player behavior. After all, have you ever played someone else's copy and felt weirdly unwelcome? I've even heard the game's best speedrunners owe their success to an umbilical symbiosis with the intelligence they've nurtured.

Super Mario 64 Soundscapes

deliriously...daniel WRITER

Everywhere, Beyond the Skybox by OSCOB

1995/07/29 Build INCOMPLETE SOUNDTRACK by Harley Thomas

It is the Mario Iceberg and the cursed 1995 build in particular that have inspired albums to imagine just how unsettling a haunted Super Mario 64 cartridge's soundtrack might be. While not directly vaporwave music, these interpretations of a "ghost in the machine" nevertheless touch upon the same hauntological themes of decaying nostalgia that vapor music hinges on.

Taking the most direct approach to this, 1995/07/29 Build INCOMPLETE SOUNDTRACK by Harley Thomas is about exactly what you'd picture after hearing the term "Super Mario 64 creepypasta music." Taking familiar tunes from the game, ominously looping them with hollow intonation, INCOMPLETE SOUNDTRACK is like playing The Caretaker's copy of the game. Manipulation of the original samples is far from extreme, with just a few transition segments truly doubling down on scary, abrasive and droned-on game ambiance.

1995/07/29 Build INCOMPLETE SOUNDTRACK is a fitting companion for lurid evenings spent blearily reading uneasy Nintendo conspiracy theories—it's sure to give you goosebumps, as it meets note-for-note the hypothetical "syllabus" its coordinating ghost story calls for. But for a more transformative take on the musical Mario Iceberg mythos, we can turn to OSCOB's Everywhere, Beyond the Skybox. With a much longer runtime and a more ambitious exploration of dark ambient or noise genre elements, Everywhere, Beyond the Skybox is less like a '95 build Let's Play and more like a literal midnight polar plunge off the edge of Cool, Cool Mountain and into the murky depths that house the Mario Iceberg itself. With track titles directly naming some of the Iceberg's more obscure theories—from "Unused Flower Texture" to "Ally with Info"— OSCOB's album is a tense descent into madness, as the warped and physics-defying castle it scores grows more grating and far less hospitable.

Though there are still a number of recognizable Super Mario 64 samples here, Everywhere, Beyond the Skybox renders them glacial and alien, entombing your warm memories of the game in the impersonal, distorted exoskeleton of Metal Mario. While neither album here will leave you feeling giddy and youthful, OSCOB's album in particular takes the idea of a negative emotional aura to a menacingly immersive level.

Whichever creepy Super Mario 64 album ends up feeling more personalized to you, just remember one thing: Please, walk quietly in the hallway.

れい Zer0