ReMix: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 'Ganon's Temple'

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Well, the Olympics have started, and here in Virginia at least we escaped Hurricane Charley. Best wishes to any listeners dealing with the mess in Florida. NBC "borrowed" the slower theme from the first Jurassic Park for their pre-Olympic documentary bit, which I thought was rather odd since there's an abundance of great themes and fanfares composed by Williams himself as well as others, written specifically for the occassion. Anyways, the games should provide good couch potato material for weeks to come. I somehow feel guilty eating a large pepperoni pizza all by myself, sitting on my ass, watching people swim 400 meters or do amazing gymnastic stuffs. But we all have our fortes. The forte (segue!) of Neskvartetten has been and remains making great, very atmospheric and authentic jazz game arrangements, with a predilection towards the Zelda series. This latest sub from Zelda 3 features Erik Kristoffesen on Alto Sax and is perhaps a little more challenging (i.e. less structured) than previous pieces by the group, but the core elements - a great, intimate, acoustic sound, impeccable musicianship, and spot-on mixing (the panning and effects are so natural you don't notice how good they are, it just all clicks together) - are all there in classic Neskvartetten style. I actually looped this a few times while viewing some of OCR listener tuggummi's excellent winamp visualizations - trippy in a very mellow way. In Zoetrope/Coppola's film The Conversation Gene Hackman plays sax, and for one reason or another this mix reminded me of that film. Same sort of experimental, 70's jazz jamming feel to it, I s'pose. The alto dances at a varying pace around the largely ride-cymbal driven percussion, laced with rolls, as bass, guitar, and a very electric-pianoish organ (or organesque EP) all accentuate. Again, as is the group's style, basically every player gets a chance to solo. From a certain point of view, you could say that all of them are constantly soloing, as none of the parts are on auto-pilot and all do fun things from bar to bar. I think a good way of summing up this mix, as well as their previous mixes, is to say that they put together arrangements that live musicians would have fun performing. That's not necessarily the most important thing in the world, but the side effect is that the parts all have life to them and breath, and the sum is always something mutating and expressive. Great stuff, VERY moody.

― djpretzel

Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
Oh man, only recently have I discovered Neskvartetten, gotta say, some of THE best jazz I've heard. This one is a particular favourite, the arrangement is just fantasic, the melody is pulled about over the top of some wonderful chords.
Simply awesome stuff, wish I could play sax like this guy.

- PROTO·DOME on September 12, 2010
This blows my mind. I love how in one sense it moves so far away from the original track, but in another sense (mood, chord progression) it stays so close to home. Perfect.

- Basementwall on March 4, 2010
Interesting opening with some smokey sounding sax work and some rhythm section hints. Sounds all live, which is a plus, but i felt the arrangement was a bit meandering for my taste. I'm sure this will be a hit with a lot of people, but i'm not a huge fan. Sorry. :-(

- OA on December 2, 2009
Wow, this sounds like Miles Davis, John Coltrane and John McLaughlin all at once. It's fantastic. Terrific work.

- AmzRigh on November 20, 2009
Very smooth and ambient, and great jazz
I have to admit the intro wasn't to enticing for me;it's slow to start, but later on it gets going into something more substantial.
All in all, a great mix.

- 42 on December 16, 2008
At first, I didn't think this track could be mixed any other way... but the chords actually do well for a Jazz ensemble.
GREAT sax work.

- KogeJoe on February 2, 2007
Not just any Miles Davis either; it screams "Bitches Brew/In A Silent Way". The sax player's tone sounded a lot like Bob Mintzer from the Yellowjackets.

- Kanthos on June 30, 2006
Neskvartetten (had to copy and paste that) are my new favourite remixers on this site. This remix is the one that I wanted to hear Sanctuary Dungeon made into, as soon as I heard the trumpet in the original.

- Radiowar on May 8, 2006
I just bought a pair of Sennheiser HD555s, and this was one of the first songs I used for a road test. Now I already knew the quality prevalent in this song, but now I can say that Neskvartetten sounds [b]awesome[/b]. Mustin is right to have this in his top ten ever remixes. Brilliant.

- watkinzez on April 13, 2006
It's harder to like the music if you've never heard it in the game before. And i didn't like this song until I played through Four Swords Adventures. So now I'm really enjoying this song. Even though i'm not a huge fan of jazz, it's great. Great work Neskvartetten! :D

- The_Wind_Waker8 on January 13, 2005
Man, this is some good stuff, I've always been a fan of jazz, especially small combos. I was a little skeptical when I decided to listen to this song. I've listen to some of the other jazzish remixes on this site, and i wasn't too impressed. But this is great. You could have told me that this was done by a pro, and I'd probably beleive you. Good stuff.

- tgfoo on September 29, 2004
This one was great. It was nice and long and you don't hear many remixes of this song. Actually I think this is the only remix of this song. The jazz is very nice in this song, it'd be sweet if our band at school would learn this.

- jordex on September 23, 2004
While agree with Koelsch on the bit about the bass, the song is still incredible. I love the intro, the suspense just keeps building until the song finally reaches a continuing point. Reminds me of watching some "thriller" movie when I hear this. Good stuff.

- GonTribal on September 16, 2004
The bass is way too low frequency. It sounds fine on computer speakers, but when its played on good sound systems, the bass muds it up too much.

- Koelsch1 on September 14, 2004
To be honest, I was really excited to see a mix of Ganon's Temple (my favorite piano piece to play) on the main page, by The N-squad, no less. Sahasralah's Homecoming was a great piece that I didn't expect out of a jazz mix. My ears would perk up everytime it came around on the playlist, but this song was much more ambient, almost neutral in that sense. I can tell that there's a lot going here, but the more obscure harmony and more pronounced "freestyle" brought it off my playlist fairly quickly.

- Chuckles on September 10, 2004