ReMix: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker 'Rime of the Wanderin' Seafarer'
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- Game: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (Nintendo, 2003, GCN)
- ReMixer(s): zyko
- Composer(s): Hajime Wakai, Kenta Nagata, Koji Kondo, Toru Minegishi
- Song(s): 'Dragon Roost Island', 'Title'
- Posted: 2010-09-25, evaluated by djpretzel
Emunator apparently convinced weed to submit this epic Zelda mix, and many blessings upon his house for doing so, because it's one of zyko's best, most heartfelt arrangements, and really captures the atmosphere and emotion that is unique to singer-songwriter, storyteller music. Taucer & I collabed for something vaguely along these lines way back when, but this is different, and you can tell the artist put a lot of time, effort, and soul into the lyrics, vocals, acoustic guitar, and accompaniment.
To coincide with this mixpost, Mr. Hawatky just released his new album of originals, A Mild Suggestive Moment, ahead of schedule; this statement holds true for all OC ReMixers, but since he's made so many great VGM mixes available for free, see if you can support him and at the same time check out his original material by plunking down five bucks (or more); knowing zyko, it's going to be creative, exploratory, & well worth your time.
Waleed writes:
"this tune was one of the last things of mine that my father heard before he passed. it was also his favorite work of mine and when i inherited his iPod, i was really moved that it turned up several times. i had originally started the idea for the project several years earlier but, in that early iteration, the track was somethin' more of an upbeat drunken sailor tavern song. by the time i got back around to the project a couple years ago for DoD, it had transformed into a more deliberate, introspective bard's tale. and yeah the title is totally a shout out to Iron Maiden!
anyway, around that same time, in October of 2008, my father became deathly ill. he was hospitalized for a cardiac arrest and all indications were that he wasn't going to make it. he miraculously survived it and would live until the following August but the jarring event was unavoidably foreshadowing.
the track itself is more or less a telling of the Wind Waker story as told by, if you can imagine it, Link rocking (out) gently in his dragon boat with an acoustic guitar. the storyteller here is actually the companion on the journey, the boat, and not Link himself.
this piece features my Taylor 314C acoustic guitar, a pocketful of rupees and a breeze..."
It's a moving context to a piece that's moving all on its own, even without the context; zyko's vocals convey both authenticity and conviction. When the melody goes a bit outside what I'm guessing is his comfortable range, it doesn't even matter, because he breaks/cracks the word-note in a way that actually works better. There are definitely some moments in the recording where the mic overloads a bit, which would be my biggest issue, but they're cosmetic and thankfully fleeting. Few artists in the community attempt mixes like this in the first place, and so the bravery of putting yourself out there musically juxtaposes nicely with Link's bravery in the actual song.
I've been waiting to post this for a whole week now, as we really wanted visitors to check out the corresponding album release as well and maximize its visibility, but I've had the first verse of the lyrics stuck in my head the whole time. In my opinion, zyko's really laid it all out there and also crafted a piece of music that combines his own personal emotions with a lyrical narrative that gives new weight & perspective to Wind Waker. You can't ask for much more.
Discussion: Latest 15 comments/reviews; view the - Crulex on September 19, 2012
2. such an amazing voice, plays the too high(?) notes well, as stated by djpretzel
3. impressively fitting lyrics that make an already touching song nigh tear-jerking
4. amazing that you seem to have put your own emotions into a melody you didn't compose: props
5. this is gonna be stuck in my head for a while
thank you!
- champ the hippie on August 2, 2011
About 30 seconds in and my reactions was "this actually isn't bad."
2 minutes in and I know i'm listening to the whole thing.
This is actually really good. Awesome!
- jordanrooben on July 24, 2011
zyko;732502 wrote: because of that, the vocals aren't meant to wow you into thinking "ya know, this guy is a great singer!" instead, it is meant to sound like a guy, who isn't necessarily a musician, with a guitar on a boat... maybe just a boy who found himself caught up in the middle of something much bigger than himself and is struggling with trying to make sense of it. i can't imagine link being a classically trained vocalist and luckily, neither am i :D
honestly, i kinda like my voice cracking... i find the imperfection to be so intrinsically human that it may just be perfect hehe
Fuck yes man, this is what I love about your music. A lot of the feel and emotion of your music comes the flaws that are noticeably present, but somehow manages to actually improve the songs instead of detract from them. This is the perfect example of that. Will this be winning any awards for the most technically proficient vocal performance? Probably not, but damn if it isn't one of the best written, most enjoyable, and most heartfelt vocal mixes on the entire site. I hope you don't ever change that aspect of your music, it's what drew me to you at first and what continues to hold me as I hear each new song of yours.
I'm glad I was able to play a small part in helping this reach more ears, it's an unequivocally brilliant performance and absolutely one of those songs that I'll always look back on with the utmost fondness.
- Emunator on December 11, 2010
Everything from your voice (which is amazing) to the simple strokes on the guitar and the nice use of the theme from the game is just taking this... this masterpiece to a whole new level of ReMixing.
I hope that we will be hearing more from you, and once again, thanks for showing the world, that the Triforce indeed is real, or atleast this part of it.
- Dennyaaa on November 24, 2010
first of all, thanks for the love both here and on youtube... as always, it is much appreciated that my music was enjoyable!
about having multiple voices; while i've never been against collaboration (as i've probably collaborated more over the years than anyone i know), i've gotta stress that not very many of my tracks are presented as "studio" music. i actually struggle mightily with making studio quality music and i invariably end up making mood pieces or environment pieces probably as some kind of copout ... or, like this track and many others, guy-with-a-guitar-in-the-woods types of pieces
because of that, the vocals aren't meant to wow you into thinking "ya know, this guy is a great singer!" instead, it is meant to sound like a guy, who isn't necessarily a musician, with a guitar on a boat... maybe just a boy who found himself caught up in the middle of something much bigger than himself and is struggling with trying to make sense of it. i can't imagine link being a classically trained vocalist and luckily, neither am i :D
honestly, i kinda like my voice cracking... i find the imperfection to be so intrinsically human that it may just be perfect hehe
- zyko on November 23, 2010
First of all, the music is great. Really breathtaking work on the instrumentation. Your guitar-work is divine, and the flute at the end sealed the deal. My only serious complaint on music is the breakdown at ~3:20. It's really sudden and kind of out of place. It's executed well so this complaint isn't TOO loud, but it needed some transition time. It felt kind of like I tripped and fell into another remix. A GOOD remix, but it was sudden and unexpected. And, if I may be allowed to indulge in a bit of nit-picking, the puzzle-solved sound at ~4:27 seems a bit crammed in. But not terribly so.
The voice work, I am less sold on. Firstly, the lyrics are perfect, and I would love to see more song-writing from you. That's not the problem: the glaring weakpoint on this otherwise indestructible monolith of a mix is the vocals. The way the track is written, it really, really needs two different voices singing, because your voice seems to be straining really hard to hit some of the high notes, and not quite getting there.
Don't get me wrong: when you get it right, you get it [i]really[/i] right. The fifth verse ("now on this new day, a cold wind blows...", ~2:25) works great as is and was the point that this track went from "pretty okay" to "actually quite good." You drive it home on verse seven ("within the belly of the beast, son...", ~4:30). At that point the only appropriate response is to throw a fist into the air and shout "hell yeah!" (I did not actually do this, but I wanted to.)
But then there are the parts where it doesn't work in a big way because your voice doesn't quite get the note called for. Just about any time the word "legend" comes up in the lyrics is a really good example of this. This happens mostly at the beginning of the track. The voice breaking in verse 2, on the word "stone" made me wince when I first listened to this. I think these points are really begging for a woman's voice. This could have made a great duet: I'm no composer, but instinctively I think this kind of song could have some great weaving effects with two voices. (Or maybe three: get a baritone in there to belt out the super manly verses!)
Overall it's still good, but it brushes close to perfection that I find myself judging it harshly simply because with a few tweaks it could actually reach it.
- Proven Paradox on November 11, 2010
- UnveiledOsiris on October 15, 2010
- King Bowser Koopa on October 10, 2010
predcon;717167 wrote: Funny you should use the word "Rime" for a song used in Dragon Roost, since rime is actually a kind of frost, specifically the frost that appears on windows early in the morning when dew and fog freezes on them.
you know, that irked me as well actually. the iron maiden song is based on a great 18th century poem by Samuel Coleridge of the same name (and the same spelling of rime) and not only structured its lyrics after the poem's style but also directly quotes a couple of verses from it. the poem was actually my chief influence on the piece, not the maiden song (as you can tell they are stylistically nothing alike lol) particularly, but in the end it kinda worked out the same. the lyrics read like a straight forward poem about finding one's way in the world although i ditched the allegorical context to focus more on the isolation of our "hero" on the open sea in search of his destiny.
and like coleridge's poem, its strangely autobiographical :)
- zyko on October 9, 2010
My only criticism is that at about 4:30, when the vocals come in again, it sounds as if they were recorded too loud; this is especially apparent when listening to the mix with headphones.
6:00 onwards, when the flute joins the mix, is just great. Wonderful way to end this remix.
- Martin Penwald on October 9, 2010
A++ would listen again. :-)
- OA on October 5, 2010
I absolutely love the instrumentation in this song. The acoustic guitar and other ethnic instruments lend well for an emotional song like this. The lyrics take advantage of this setting greatly, bolstering this heartfelt tale.
This could be one of my favorite tracks on OCR now, it's that deep & different.
- Bahamut on October 1, 2010
