Posted 2009-03-10, evaluated by the judges panel


What happens when you combine flute, string, harpsichord, and the guitar from the Law & Order intro? You get part of Hemo and Pacaud's track off Summoning of Spirits, a truly unconventional piece of music that spends most of its time as a drumless Baroque guitarscape with Pacaud's frets over Hemo's orchestral textures. Guit doesn't actually enter until 0'53", where clean arpeggios to the left are combined with delayed, warmly-distorted lead... this bit actually feels a little like the intro from 'The Street of Rage' to me, in a good way. Pacaud works in some really odd guitar textures, I guess a little Frippish if I had to name drop; check out the lone jazz chord at 1'37" (followed by... a bassoon riff!), strumming at 2'11", and awesome, warbly run at 2'20".

Genuinely fresh textures, here; maybe I've been watching too much Iron Chef, but this feels like one of those episodes where the main ingredient is something like Rhinoceros balls, but somehow they combine that with melon and light cream and the finished dish actually looks good. Or at least edible. I'm not saying the harpsichord here is akin to Rhino balls, I'm saying these two guys cooked up something interesting and palatable from some very unlikely ingredients. A lot of times I like to emphasize how natural and seamless a collab is, where you can't even tell two different artists worked together on it... well, this ain't that, but seamless isn't always the goal. Here you've got an odd-but-charismatic arrangement that tries some risky ideas but makes it all work. Hemo explains how he got from point A to point B:

"my original concept for this track was to start with orchestral and go into this kinda 80s ballad rock...well, after going thru 2 collaborators (for recording of bass and guitars) and then finding Christian (omg thanks!) this rather turned into baroque goes into prog rock. i am still pleased with the final result, despite the departure."

Baroque goes into prog rock... yeah, that pretty much sums it up. But as any pun-prone music history teacher will tell you, if it ain't Baroque, don't fix it. This was a resub that the panel had a go at way back in 2006; Malcos writes:

"I really like the sub-bass, don't hear that kind of thing often with submissions. The guitar and piano part is excellent and give a good sense of atmosphere. It feels like the actual main part of the mix starts 'late' (2.20), although stylistically it is very interesting."

Good call on the bass. Shariq also pointed out some issues w/ slow attacks on the strings, and in general the orchestral samples/mixing don't pop as much as they could, but this is a mix where you're either gonna go along with the premise and enjoy the ride, or shrug. I personally enjoyed the ride quite a bit, as I think the very strange arrangement ideas here mostly work. It's a thoughtful, moody piece of work that's unique in context on the album and here on the site, but I definitely recommend it as a breath of fresh, stylistic air.

djpretzel

Discussion

Latest 14 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
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timaeus222
on 2013-04-04 13:59:44

You simply can't hate this remark:

Genuinely fresh textures, here; maybe I've been watching too much Iron Chef, but this feels like one of those episodes where the main ingredient is something like Rhinoceros balls, but somehow they combine that with melon and light cream and the finished dish actually looks good. Or at least edible. I'm not saying the harpsichord here is akin to Rhino balls, I'm saying these two guys cooked up something interesting and palatable from some very unlikely ingredients.

I thought this mix was pretty enjoyable. Big fan of harpsichords and baroque-esque soundscapes. Guitar at 0:55 was a little reminiscent of Steve Vai, and kinda sounds like the style of Tender Surrender. Some tubular bells in the background were a nice touch, but a bit quiet. Strings were a tiny bit detached but alright. 2:13 phaser guitar was okay, but leading up to 2:20 was a bit sudden. Smooth writing overall, great piece.

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Bahamut
on 2009-12-02 18:03:52

This song seems to start off odd with me - I think it might be the harpsichord being too muted, and perhaps some frequency range missing, making it sound unbalanced in some way, if that makes any sense.

The guitar is also mixed strangely, or it could be the whole song in general. It really throws off the listenability on repeat for me.

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Emunator
on 2009-12-01 01:45:46

This one took a while for me to come around too, I'll be honest. Harpsichord never really sits right with me, so I wasn't a big fan of the intro and honestly I think I skipped over this track initially because of it. It's not any fault of the mixer, I just don't like that sound.

Luckily, on subsequent listens I found out that there was more to it, and since then I've actually enjoyed the song a lot! The synergy created between the mellow guitars and the ominous strings is very strong. CPac did a good job not only with playing the instrument, but also creating a great tone that really fits with the mood of the song.

Misleading intro aside, I really like this one. Nice work guys :-)

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yosefu
on 2009-04-19 23:40:41

This song is pretty cool from start to finish. When it come getting heavy its pretty interesting. Great job

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Mtlbro
on 2009-04-11 16:38:17

The weird chords they needed to fit in probably made some transitions difficult. So considering, those sound fantastic.

I love the part around 1:30 going into the prog rock section. Pretzels right, does sound like law in order, more power to them for that lol. Nice kind of fade out-ish ending. What is that "wwwaaaaaah" sound in the background?

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DragonAvenger
on 2009-04-07 16:09:56

I'm torn over this one. There are parts I really enjoy, there are parts I enjoy seperately, and then there are parts I'm not sure about.

The intro is wonderful, and I think it fits Mint's theme perfectly. I would have loved to hear the entire song like that. The transition to the prog section was tenuous, I felt like scratching my head and wondering how it managed to get there.

The prog rock section in itself was pretty good, with fantastic guitar work. Some spots didn't mesh well, as the judges mentioned (some string sections weren't quite meshing right). The section from 2:20 was pretty cool, I found that to be the best moment in that section.

I'm glad people are willing to take a chance combining genres that we wouldn't expect. It didn't work overall for me, but there were moments I really enjoyed seperately.

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jintoreedwine
on 2009-03-27 22:42:04

At first I had mixed feelings about this mix, but after a couple more listens to decide what my true feelings were I like it quite a bit.

I love the opening and think is transitions to the guitar part at just the right time. The section from 2:25 to 2:40 doesn't do much for me, but that's really a matter of personal taste.

All around though, this is an enjoyable mix to listen to :)

Nice work guys!

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PriZm
on 2009-03-13 23:54:03

First of all, I think this track has the coolest title on the whole project.

The sub bass at 1:48 is one of my favorite moments.

Very coherent and the transitions work extremely well for such an eclectic genre.

I love the guitar tone, but the tremolo picking at 2:33 and especially 2:36 kinda irks me.

Anyways, congratulations on a great, stylish and emotionally charged track.

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OA
on 2009-03-13 10:02:51

This would be about three pretty good tracks on it's own, though the transitions and connections between the three are a bit tenuous. The guitar playing is fantastic, and the subtle details like the low string glissando's and the driving harpsichord make it a good track to listen to while contemplating where to hold your next poetry reading.

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evktalo
on 2009-03-11 03:21:01

What is an extremely cool, haunting track in it's heart is marred for me by some problems in the writing (review in the feedback thread here.) Fortunately it doesn't ruin the fun completely, but it does keep the piece from becoming a true favourite of mine.

--Eino

(nice name drop, djp!)

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Sir_Downunder
on 2009-03-11 03:00:04

This was... huh... I......... really don't have a lot of words for this...

Hemo's work gave this mix good life, while Chris's gave this thing some great guitar work...

I'm sorry... but this mix has really left me lost for words. :oops:

It's like Djpretzel said: "an odd-but-charismatic arrangement"

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KyleJCrb
on 2009-03-11 00:57:53

Like a lot of Christian's work, this is definitely progressive rock to at it's finest. Hemo's orchestral work is nice here, balanced well with the aggressive geetar wankerage near the end. Probably one of the more experimental tracks on SoS, but one that I think turned out rather well overall. Good show from both Chris'.

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Liontamer
on 2009-03-10 23:38:32

Great stuff from Chris Christian. The textures here were very cool.

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djpretzel
on 2009-03-10 23:25:11

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

Sources Arranged (1 Song)


Primary Game:
Tales of Phantasia (Namco , 1994, SNES)
Music by Motoi Sakuraba,Ryota Furuya,Shinji Tamura,Toshiyuki Sekiguchi
Songs:
"Mint"

Tags (7)


Genre:
Classical,Rock
Mood:
Sad
Instrumentation:
Electric Guitar,Orchestral
Additional:
Origin > Collaboration
Origin > Resubmission

File Information


Name:
Tales_of_Phantasia_Crisis_Healing_Salve_OC_ReMix.mp3
Size:
6,178,001 bytes
MD5:
ea08b01f6e9727fce45259d9e772e33d
Bitrate:
215Kbps
Duration:
3:46

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