ReMix: Final Fantasy VIII 'Everything = Nothing'

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Final Fantasy VIII

Well... things have been really interesting the last couple weeks. Everyone's been busy with finals, I've been gettin into Hot Hot Heat a bit, the most recent episodes of both Naruto and Gundam SEED Destiny rocked out, I'm finally getting around to converting some of OCR's code to use classes and make the best of PHP4's rather weak support for OO, I've been falling in love with Eclipse as an IDE, not only for Java but PHP as well, and whaddaya know, our very own Washington Wizards are finally holding their own in the finals. Good stuff. So, more relevantly, newcomer Bryan Henderson, alias Sefiros, gives us a dramatic, near-seven minute, striking orchestral arrangement of "Compression of Time". Things begin with tentative, deliberate piano chords, as strings edge their way in like the first rays of the sun breaking over the horizon of a clear wintry morn. Sounds like I stole that from a rejected Hallmark card, but visually it actually *is* the image conjured, if not the phrasing. This piece has a dramatic, building, pulsing push to it, not unlike the concluding track off my favorite Goldenthal score, Titus, or some of the work off the singular Requiem for a Dream soundtrack. There's a lot of exposed, stark solo violin, and while sometimes (like the very end) notes are held so long that the vibrato loop becomes readily apparent, overall the production quality is high. There's a lot of emotion here, and you get the sense the ReMixer really felt the original piece when he constructed this arrangement. Larry mentioned potential issues with sustained dynamics at parts, but there are plenty of breaks that drop things down, and constituent elements are often fading in oh so gradually, slowly and intensely building up momentum and force. Despite the very serious mood, I can't help but give the nod to Shariq's quip-prefixed comments:

"The opening reminds me of one of those chinese martial arts movies where they make the pretense of having a really deep love story when it's all just an excuse to do kung fu. Go figure. Yeah this is really pretty stuff. I'm enjoying the slowly moving lines buried within the sustained chords; nice stuff. Dynamics are excellent; lots of highs and lows; those detache strings are wonderfully executed too."

Frankly, no one ever needs an excuse to do Kung Fu. Everyone should Kung Fu freely and with as little discretion and context as possible. This would solve 70% of the world's problems, by my calculations. But in the end this ain't Kung Fu Fightin' music, but rather a serious, transporting opus, nearly a textbook definition of a cinematic "build" piece, and a classy, beautiful initial ReMix from Mr. Henderson.

― djpretzel

Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
I've always loved 'Compression of Time' while playing FF8. Everytime I heard it, I felt the..nothingness..the despair in its tunes. What you did with it was absolutely brilliant. At first I said there's no way, but now that i've listented to it, I have to say "you did it!" IT was simply brilliant.

- LadyReemz86 on July 16, 2009
This is an utterly beautiful rendition of this song. It is just as dramatic and moving as the original if not moreso. I love the slow build and that you didn't add too many instruments or make it too busy. I was afraid of listening to a remix of this particular song but I'm so glad I did!

- Koru-chan on May 19, 2009
I wanted to do a remix of this source, myself, hoping that no one else did an amazing rendition of it. It is one of my very favorite Final Fantasy songs (perhaps next to Kefka). Damnit, you beat me to the punch! This remix is great, and I hope everyone on this site can at the least give it a listen - they won't regret it!
The source itself was amazing, and you didn't detract from it one bit. Wonderful.

- Gario on April 18, 2009
Still one of my absolutely favorites on OCR and among video game arrangements period.
Personally, I don't know how well the sequencing pulls off being realistic. Bryan certainly did a good enough job for me. The sound of the bow movements and the string harmonies were extremely emotive.
I would love to hear this on an official arrangement album, without the losiness of the 112kbps encoding. It's that good. Given further fine tuning with the sound quality, it could have easily closed out a dramatic battle in an blockbuster Hollywood film.

- Liontamer on May 22, 2008
This caused meh to cry... Please make another...
Please....

- Ranch Doritos on January 30, 2008
This is really beautiful and in every aspect of the word. Very mesmerizing and soothing.
I don't think I could say enough about how much I like this piece, nay, love this piece. It just takes you to another place and does it with such justice, too.
Right on, man.

- Phoenix Wynde on December 29, 2007
For some reason I don't like most of the FF8 remixes, this one however is great. Good job mate.

- HoboKa on February 7, 2007
Absolutely amazing! one of the best songs in the game Remixed to perfection! well done!! very well done! bloody marvelous remix love the the ending to it! big build up to a slow finish, Well done and thanks for an awesome remix Slasher

- Slasher on February 3, 2007
swampbug wrote: This song IS sex. good job.

I couldn't say it better...
The insane amount of emotion you've squeezed into 6.50 min is amazing.

- isthan on September 29, 2006
This is pretty cool. Has a sort of GY!BE thing going on. Feels a little heavy on the left though. Maybe it's just my headphones. Samples don't bother me that much.
Yeah this is awesome. Nice work.

- Radiowar on July 10, 2006
Sefiros wrote: There are about 30 remixes on VGMix.
And I have four original albums.

I actually [i]just[/i] started going to VGMix the other day. I've only checked out a few your songs. I'm liking what I've heard so far (like the FF8 one where you threw in Freya's theme; don't remember the name). Have you submitted any of them to this site? I know OCR's standards are pretty high, but I think you could land a few more here.

- DJ Skratch 'n' Sniff on January 30, 2006
There are about 30 remixes on VGMix.
And I have four original albums.

- Sefiros on January 30, 2006
This mix is probably the best FF8 mix I've ever heard (this and Ziwtra's "Rain in Chicago"). I'm kinda' disappointed that this is Sefiros's only available mix. I'd like to hear much more.

- DJ Skratch 'n' Sniff on January 24, 2006
absolutely brilliant, I suddenly forgot about everything I was doing when I heard it, it really took me away from reality, the title is good too

- about:blank on January 23, 2006
^ I can't agree more. It starts out with that melancholy and then you get the percussion that makes it sound like a march to war with that spirit inside every soldier, but the main melody tells us that despite that, there is a deeper darker truth that will emerge. This is an amazing multi-dimensional work and there's definitely a message between the notes that we all relate to.

- lady zelda on January 19, 2006

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