OCR01246 - Secret of Evermore 'Anachronism'

[djpretzel]

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

[jordex]

Hmm... Its slow at first, I'm waiting for the main melody then I realize that this is it. This song really doesn't show or build up any emotion, as much as it is cool, I'm just not feeling it... Know what I mean? It feels like there's no story behind this piece.

[Phil1450]

I felt there was a lot of story behind this piece, actually. I kept thinking of Zelda OOT and running across the field. Just seems like a big adventure. Well, anyway, I'm totally diggin' it. :D

[Dhsu]

Dude, this stuff is tite yo.

Ya'll best recognize.

[Valthonis{FuNk}]

Wow, i love this mix (then again, i love most piano remix's =/)

But, it just puts me in a relaxed state of mind. I really enjoy it :).

Great remix man, keep it up :D

[SirRus]

Ethereal.

I enjoyed this, and you know its a quality piano solo if Dhsu represents. Keep mixin em up for us Shnabubula.

[Fieari]

People! Recognize technical beauty when you hear it! This is freedom personified into musical form! Freedom to fly, to soar... freedom to rest, to sleep... freedom to appreciate life. Try what Pretzel says and tap your foot or nod your head to the rythym. You can do it for short periods of time, but then it always breaks out, but does so in a way that maintains musical form and precision.

This is entrancing, enthralling, beautiful. This song has soul. It has a story, a tale to tell, and it paints a fluid picture in my mind. Waterfalls and streams and sea and sky...

At the same time it is incredibly precious, and horribly cruel. Not for the bouncing about it does with timing and beats, which is beautiful in and of itself, but because it builds and builds and builds and then drops you at the end, leaving you panting for more! "There should be another verse," I cry! But somehow, I feel that this too was intentional. It's like ending a message with an elipsis... there's more, it says, but I'll leave it to your imagination.

Cruel, but still profound.

This is good.

[Sil]

This song really doesn't show or build up any emotion, as much as it is cool, I'm just not feeling it... Know what I mean? It feels like there's no story behind this piece.

Yes, that is the point of impressionism in music. The piece is supposed to be isolated from the artist's emotions, and instead "paint colors". This is always tricky, though, and sometimes a work can end up sounding sentimental, and maybe even sad at times, but that should never be the final goal. There’s definitely no story, because this isn’t programmatic music. It is “pure” music, and rightly so.

I am very impressed with this piece. Shnabubula has nailed the style perfectly, and that’s all there is too it. The accompaniment, harmonies, dissonances, and dynamics all seem to come together to make something enjoyable, especially considering the melodies consist of variations on music from SoE. The part at 3:00 leading into the next section was also quite delightful.

[Dafydd]

It just so happens that Jeremy Soule is himself a pianist. I'm sure he'd be glad to hear this. :)

[Rhombus]

Fantastic work here from Shnabubula. Jazz is definitely an underrepresented genre in the remix scene, and it looks like that's starting to change. Between this piece, and Shnabubula's other recent remix (a great jazz piano FF9 mix over at vgmix), it looks like jazz is finally starting to get some loveage. Shnabubula obviously can really play some piano, and knows his jazz theory and comp. It's also really great to see some coverage of SoE... not just one of my favorite soundtracks, but one of my favorite games. Cool stuff.

[bladiator]

Not sure what kind of jazz you listen to. :) This is definitely some late-romantic/impressionist smack if I've ever heard it. And not bad smack, btw. The arrangement is REALLY well done. The song always knew where it was going ... no large sections of music where the song meandered to fill time or anything. VERY impressive.

[DM Lee]

I very much enjoyed this piece, seriously this is going to get a ton of play by me in the future.

The only thing i dont like is the sorta high hatty sound i hear like at 0:23 (this is the best example because the sound actually occurs when no notes are playing. I dont know what this is, maybe just recording fuzz, but it really got annoying to me).

Then there are sudden bassy plunks like at 0:27 which dont happen to often and i know this is just due to the bass notes in the piano but it still kinda got to me.

But like I said, I enjoyed this piece on many levels... musically, mentally, emotionally, it was relaxing and at the same time jerked emotions around in me without actually bringing them forward. Makes me want to feel somehting without knowing what the feeling is.

I have posted maybe ten reviews in the past two years so a song has to really really grab my attention to get a review, thats how good this was.

Everyone should enjoy this for its artistic experimentation on the themes. Wonderful music, wonderful.

[Oruroku]

Yay....finally, a SoE remix. I was actually thinking about why OCR didn't have one, even though SoE has some of my fav game music ever.
Though it's kind of a letdown for this to be in piano (I love piano, don't get me wrong), it's still interestingly played. Good job, I would say.

[Hawke Edge]

Finally, some love for this game :)

I was just thinking in my head the other day "Y'know, we could use a good SoE remix.."

Alas, my prayers were heard. And they were heard well, for this piano piece is definitely intriguing, very beautiful and well played.

My mind returned to the game - I easily picked up on Ivory Tower - and reminicsed of pig fairs and brutishly ugly queens ruling the land with puppets.

Keep up the good work.

[Dahlia]

Excellent! This is very enjoyable to listen to, and IVor Tower has always been one of my favorites from SoE. Good work!

(...I was just about to submit the first Secret of Evermore ReMix. :? )

[rapa-nui]

I've always thought of this as Soule's weakest score (I didn't find the SoE ST very memorable) but this is simply excellent.

[Zebceponaf]

About time we get a remix of this great game up. Congrats, this is a good one. Lets get some more SOE remixs on OCR ASAP (IMHO),ha LOL, OMG....(ok, someone kill me.)

[RimFrost the Tourianist]

ROTFL :lol: this piano clanking piece sounds alot like a building theme from The Sims to me.
BUT it is a very solid SoE remix ,and i enjoyed it intensly .

[Kaleb.G]

A simply AWESOME piano mix of a couple great SoE tunes. It's Hamauzu meets Soule!
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I've always thought of this as Soule's weakest score (I didn't find the SoE ST very memorable) but this is simply excellent.
What the hell are you smoking? Because I want you to destroy it all now. Seriously though, what do you think Soule's best work is?

[Paladin-01]

I personally love this remix. I tend not to throw my vote onto the ReViews, but this one just REALLY calls out. Its a good piece of "classical" style music, I could easily see this slipping into the local classical place, except for the fact that its a tad too lively in parts. >_< Anyway, Just listening to this music is relaxing, and if I let my imagination wander, things happen. This is a big difference I've found to a lot of other remixes, and through no fault of their own, their base music. They paint a picture of what is happening in the game, and thats what they're supposed to do. But this... this is truly something. I mean, I'm a lazy typist, and I banged this out in about 30 seconds, this music means something to me. It really does things to me when I listen to it right before I go to bed. And when I follow it up with Nigel Simmon's SoM Return to Elysian Lands, I feel so relaxed I fall asleep almost immeadiately after.

>_<

So, summarized, this is good, we need more Secret of Evermore music, more mixes like this, and more mixers with the talent, imagination, and panache of this guy.

[rapa-nui]

Probably Icewind Dale or Morrowind. Giants was quite memorable as well.

Second to those NWN and KOTOR, which I thought were weaker on the whole.

Everything else of his, I just haven't heard. But out of that which I've heard, Evermore is my least favorite.

Oh, and yes RimFrost, it does have some resemblance to the Sims building music, most of which I also liked very much.

[Kaleb.G]

Probably Icewind Dale or Morrowind. Giants was quite memorable as well.
Okay, I'm off to check those out.

UPDATE: Okay, Icewind Dale is decent at best. There's only maybe a few memorable melodies in that whole thing. SoE knocks the socks off that shit. Are you just in it for the orchestration? Any shmoe can do that, and you can't "remix" orchestration.

I'm going to check out some of his other stuff like Neverwinter Nights. I know the man can orchestrate, but I want him to wow me with his melodies like he did in SoE.

[jordex]

Up until 3:07 I found this song really boring but then the part at here made me realize the rest of the song wasn't that bad...

The song didn't seem that great to me but it would take some mad skills to pull this song off so kudos to that, Shnabubula!

[DJ Skratch 'n' Sniff]

Now we all very well why Square of America flopped:
SoE was just a ball of crap that spun off the SoM franchise.
<ahem>This being said... I still loved playing the game; this is mainly due to the freaking
spectacular score this game has. And I believe Anachronism does more than back me up.
Check it if you haven't already.

[Xiedo]

So you loved playing the game and you loved the music but you still think the game was a piece of crap? If we're gonna be flaming here, put it on the record that I think SoE is at least as good as SoM if not, you know... better. I mean both great games, but one does pull ahead. :)

I also love this piece, though. It reminds me of the piano arrangement of the castle theme on the SoE OST, composed by Soule himself.

I can imagine many of the Evermore themes would work well in piano arrangements and I would love to see more. :)

[Evilhead]

Wow, I downloaded this a while ago but just now listened to it... What a fantastic recording. Wonderful piano work. Probably the most beautiful mix on this site. Great job!

[Teliskopic]

This is also one of the most beautiful piano mixes here! It's got a lot of feeling. In fact, it's so full of feeling, it makes it all the more wonderful.

I've had this mix for a while and now I want to post my thanks for playing such a song. Makes me want to play SoE... though I've only played a very tiny bit into it a long time ago. And Soule's music is great, his FF6 remix is proof of that.

[TrueMagoo]

SoE may have been a rip from the SoM formula... however, the score was a completely different style. Some of the themes in SoE still haunt me to this day. SoE was like the creepy, eerie distant cousin to SoM; did anyone else notice how the backrounds were very reflective towards the music as well? As much as the game was quickly labeled a retrograde of Square's earlier titles, die-hard RPG fans soon realized that SoE was chillingly compelling and made for a great game. Bravo on the Remix, excellent work.

[FinalGamer]

This is amazing. Despite it being only a piano, it keeps making this beautiful waltz of the songs involved and continuously blends them into one piece. Very impressive work, well done!

[Bummerdude]

Hmm... Its slow at first, I'm waiting for the main melody then I realize that this is it. This song really doesn't show or build up any emotion, as much as it is cool, I'm just not feeling it... Know what I mean? It feels like there's no story behind this piece.
Really? It's calm in the beginning, so calm that you just wish it to begin already, but it's not completely still either. Shnabubula gains some extra keys for every sequence she plays, and when she has arrived in the middle of the track, it has actually picked up some more speed and extra notes. This is restaurant music, where you're supposed to just sit at your table and listen to the musician that sits in the corner of the room playing the piano.

No story? Perhaps, but you can make one yourself. That's what games are aboot. Nice remix Shnabubula, you are a true pianist indeed. :D

[Monobrow]

This is the best piano piece on the site, bar none. So very glad a song like this is on OCR, they are few and far between. Thanks.

[Audity]

Squeaky seat syndrome.

Oh yeah, and supreme-piano-remix syndrome as well. Guess you can't have too much awesome. I didn't notice the seat squeaking until like the 20th listen.

I will now go into detail describing the things that could have been better with this song: 1) No squeaky seat, 2) nothing.

[The Author]

I think you can appreciate even more the technical prowess in this mix if you start to loop it. I don't know why but it feels like a clean loop. As i it was meant to play endlessly. And yes, my head bops during some parts, especially around 3:07 up to 3:33. I seriously enjoy this piece, it goes from meek to fierce and back to meek. And even more, I believe it would be perfect as a part of the game's score. There is so much from the game that made it into this one song. The changes in the song are impressive, it's like listening to 5 different songs, and the emotions are there, but so subtle, and so conflicting. It's a beautiful piece, and I have to say that it really amazes me to hear such a rendition.

And now I want to play SoE again.

[quoda]

This is just an utterly breathtaking piece. It is a bit slow going in the beginning but that's okay because it really builds and builds as it goes along. I love that it builds up, comes back down, builds up again. Secret of Evermore had an amazing soundtrack and this song does it true justice.

[ChaosPlayer]

Perhaps the best music I have ever heard. I played the game before, but never liked much the music in this game. However, this was pretty impressive.

[Audity]

Insanely better while inebriated with whatever. Sit back and listen on ultra high quality setup with a big room and a big sofa and you're set.

[OA]

Pretty nice piano solo stuff, definitely expands on the source with a lot of cool ideas and almost no repetition. Really not much else to say but nice work. Very capable stuff.