Relay Bros’ arrangement of ‘Dr. Wily’s Castle’ from ‘Mega Man 2’ is one of the more unique collaborative projects out there. As the name of the group suggests, it is quite literally a relay. The source material was divided up into sections and each contributing musician selected the section that they wanted to arrange. Each musician arranged a finished portion of the track and sent it to Toni Leys, the head of the project. Leys was then tasked with organizing the parts from each musician and gluing it all together into a cohesive track.

In a short interview, Leys spoke about the project:

“This project was inspired by a similar collaboration that I found on Soundcloud by ああああ (aaaa). I told DDDdrive the idea and he loved it and came up with the name Relay Bros. I then told the plan to Jredd and he started bringing on more people. We messaged some friends and they all said ‘Cool! I’m down!’ GXSCChater even offered to make the cover art as well as being an involved musician.”

“It is a rather unexplored style of working, and I think it is really fun. It gathers the unique style and sound of each composer. After I received the parts from all the composers, I edited them together and mastered the final track. Each part sounded great as it was, so I just had to make them work together. It was crazy to master a track where the sound changes completely every 5 seconds! But everyone did an amazing job.”

In just over two minutes, this track goes through 10 different musicians, each one with a unique feel and style. Every contribution offers something special and amasses to something that is much more than the sum of its parts.

Follow Relay Bros for more music, and check out all of the contributing artists: jredd, GXSCChater, Toni Leys, DDDdrive, swerdmurd, That Andy Guy, Sean Evans, 梅干茶漬け (Umeboshi Chazuke), General Offensive, Tudd and ああああ