Ventrex

Beautiful work. Very calm, reflective, (my favorite word) melancholy. Normally I've got some mental imagery conjuring and conforming to any good remix/song at all, but for this there's just a pleasant nothing, a small inkling of a stream, water, just a natural, gentle flow on a warm, lazy day. Dhsu's pianomanshipness is the best of OCR, and it's nice to see how the complexity of his mixes has grown as well. Great work. Very approriate title, too!

From the opening notes, this piece made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, and as it progressed brought on that choked up feeling that feels like you've almost got a tear in your eye, but you don't, and won't, but it still feels overwhelmingly like you do, though you couldn't hope to explain why if anyone asked. This and the Castlevania mix won me over. Rexy's work has this haunting kind of innocence to it that I can't wrap words around. This is the kind of stuff that ruins my entire day if even the smallest noise is overheard during its playing, and reminds me that anything outside the song exists. And that's a very high compliment.

This is pretty good, funky, smooth, slightly jazzy stuff as usual from po. But it just kind of drifts into the background, you know? I don't listen to most of Posu's original stuff whenever I have something I need to do (even wasting time on the internet becomes impossible with Creamy Bean going), because I end up unable to do anything except focus on the music itself. In a lot of ways, this is even better. The arrangement and instrumentation are excellent, and it evokes the kind of smoky bar mood that it should. The violin work is especially really impressive and brilliantly handled. The more I listen to the track, the more that stands out as nothing short of beautiful. So... This is great, and it seems Po's improving, but I had to play it a second time to hear it. I'll blame that one on too little sleep last night, and some weird, draining dreams. PS, I could have sworn Posu did an Earthbound mix, but I can find it neither on OCR nor my hard drive, VGmix is down, and I only ever get irritated by small things I think I vaguely remember like that. And in some strange kind of way through writing this and listening to the track over and over I've changed my mind as to the background drift; it's gone from a bad sign ("Old Po didn't do this...") to a good thing ("Violins!"). I just can't criticize an artist I love for being so different for....doing something different. Oh well. Hearing new po's always a treat. No one else does this, that's for sure. Also I love the way djp's reviews sometimes go on for paragraphs about something random before reaching this, "Oh, right. The mix." point.

This song is so melancholic and sweet. Just bursting at the seams with a feeling of, "Everything changes. Even you. And there's nothing you can do about it." The way it breaks off into a swell in the middle just accentuates the mood, branching off in new directions as the future possibilities lay themselves out before you. Things change, but maybe change is for the best? Maybe loss contributes to wholeness. Maybe... The potential is sweet, and so are the memories, but things have changed, and maybe that won't happen. Is the dream of the future as important as the future itself? Is it more important if you'll hope for something wonderful when the future looks so dim? To motivate you, keep you pushing forward when you really want to sleep. A sigh and a dream at the edge of the sea. A prayer and a hope while cutting the rope. Dangling, dangling, then falling from me; and into a newness still yet undreamed. Everything changes. And nothing will ever be the same.

Wonderful. New Star stuff. Nothing much to add, except that this is one of the best mixes you've done yet, and ranks pretty high for me (though Pillar of Salt still tends to send me into a crazy trance state of awe, utterly oblivious to the outside world). You've done right by my ears when I can't really offer a single intelligent comment. Just good to see new material from Star of all people on a sleepless night that demands music. Deliriously delicious stuff as always.

My head hurts and I should definitely be cooking, but some of the sounds used in this mix are really trippybleepily delicious. I hurt for words to describe them, but a thousand tactile sensations come to mind (the strongest being a kind of multicolored rubbery candy plastic). Definitely a good sign when a mix induces mild synaesthesia.

This just came on ormgas, and I realize I still don't have any words for it except: "What the hell? This is beautiful." Also, "A deep da dooda deep da doo." Truly profound stuff.

With that, I must concur completely. Although your interpretation of why hits spot on, musically, I feel there's much more to it than that. A good deal of it, for me, are the lyrics and "wordsmithing" involved in folk music. No other genre writes as much of the road, and the knowledge therein involved, as folk music. And there is a knowledge involved in traveling, one that most never see or could understand if I had laid it flat down in front of them. A deeper understanding of the world than any philosophy or science could help one form. Seeing (and not watching) the landscapes around you slowly change and form something new, passing through a dusty and crumblingly old town, a bumbling and scurrying city, then out into a beautiful nowhere is something that shapes a human being more than anything else can--it takes a raw form, a boy or a girl, an ignorant child, and is able to produce a man or a woman, a knowledgeable adult. It is the simple and simply complex act of experiencing things you could never have imagined. Not many these days can appreciate this. They're too busy watching instead of seeing. And the road is not only beautiful fields and majestic mountains; the road is hard and harrowing, and through this more than anything else is it able to shape someone. And maybe this review is poorly written; I don't know. It was something I had to jot down quick, while there's time and while the feeling is there. Given time, I could have written it more eloquently, have many times in the past few months, but that wouldn't be very Kerouac-esque, now would it? (Obviously, I enjoy the mix a great deal.)

There are a lot of mixes I love. OCR is a treasure trove of beautiful music. Yet... This song makes me happy. Despite finding many beautiful songs when I discovered OCR, not many mixes have done that. In fact, this may be the sole exception. The melody is simple, bubbly, light, airy, and very, very beautiful. I never initially enjoy a Wingless mix. That's his beauty, I think. When I hear a Wingless song for the first time, I'm not in the right state of consciousness to receive it. I hear it, but I don't hear it. But, at some point in time, maybe even weeks, months later, I do finally hear it, and can see the often simple beauty that had eluded me for so long before. Eutopia Pegasi, and the counterpart to this very song, are perfect (ly beautiful) examples. Each Wingless mix comes at the time when it is needed. And this mix is something I will always need. In times of darkness or depression, this mix can remind me of the beauty of the world (in one girl). Because each time I listen to this song, I smile, and because of that, I feel that, in many ways, this song is the best I have found on OCR to date. Smiles don't always come easily, and to find a piece of art that always makes one smile, no matter if smiles come easy or hard at that time, is to find a piece of happiness. Usually by this point in my commentary, I tell the mixer in question, "Good job," and congratulate him/her on finely crafting a wonderful piece of work. But in this comment I feel I have to say something radically different, to Wingless: Thank you, for the smiles. (And good job, of course. )

You too, huh? Maybe I have the words now. And maybe not. Maybe I'll keep trying to find them, and maybe this is the kind of art that lacks words entirely; it is one thing to describe an emotion, and another to feel it. To live it. And some things burn so strongly you can neither ever forget them, nor ultimately, explain them. All this time since I heard the mix for the first time, and playing it now still evokes the same emotion--deeply rooted melancholia. The feeling of having lost not only a battle, but a war. Having to face your final enemy, and knowing with all your heart, and in spite of all your might that you cannot win. Your final battle will end with your death, and your name shall forever be remembered as a fool, a charlatan who dared challenge a well established reality. But also knowing that you must face this battle. That you must die, without honor, and face this dishonorable memory. Because you know that this well established reality is wrong. It is sapping the world of justice, and freedom, and it is crippling and destroying your people. You can't win, but maybe your battle will provoke someone to realize what you have, and to at last take down this injustice and liberate a people long since abused, wrecked, and shattered in the name of "saving" them. That faint hope that someone, some day, may see this, and act, and stand tall against this enemy that had killed you so long ago, is enough to justify your death, and your dishonor. And, even though I can barely type right now (this isn't my PC), that is how this mix has always made me feel, and most likely always will make me feel, until I have returned to dust. Maybe these words can convey how deeply this mix has affected me. How beautiful, and melancholy, I have always felt it to be.

Ten pages down the line, and three years later, it is clear that this a legend among mixes. Also clear is the reason why this is--as many critics, scholars, and poets have said before me, this song is simply beautiful. In fact, this may potentially be the most beautiful song on OCR, no--THE WORLD. Musicians have always strived to achieve some sort of perfect sound, a divine melody that encapsulates every aspect of being human, and this clever song, using the metaphor of the groin for the human condition, has finally done so. Now we can all put down our instruments, our pens, and indeed our clothing, piling them high into a massive tower and burn them all forever. With the release of the divinity in man released through this song we are finally freed of those things. I hereby award Mr. Riley the title of Lord Groinicus Prime XII, and Emperor of the Moon. A title long deserved, and well earned.

Sometimes a song you've never heard before is the exact thing you need to hear at that moment. And that song never comes from a source you'd expect. Even though this is a pretty old mix, I was unaware I'd be opening a comment like that for a JAXX song. But this mix has done it. It's overflowing with just the kind of emotion I'm looking for right now, this kind of melancholy, somewhat drained, somewhat inspired "leaving home for a foreign land" catharsis kind of feeling. My only caveats have been covered, but really after multiple listens I've just got a slight problem with the length. However, if extending the length meant covering old ground and repeating segments, then I certainly wouldn't want that. As it is, this mix feels a bit short (because it is!), but I think it achieves everything it set out to do. Short, yeah, but man is it sweet.

I'm almost sad that there is only one NiGHTS remix, for the same reason I am with EVO. Not because I'm a huge fan of the games' soundtracks (though I do remember playing the NiGHTS Saturn disc in a CD player, and always have dug the Ocean of Origin track from EVO, but on a whole I find both soundtracks largely forgettable under the test of time), but just because they're such beautiful and original games. But about the mix itself: This is very much my favorite McVaffe mix. Admittedly, I've never been a huge fan of McVaffe's, which isn't to say I haven't enjoyed his mixes so much as to say I haven't enjoyed them as much as others'. But this mix is a shining example of what makes a mix 'work' for me--by evoking emotion, rather than simply nostalgia. By making me imagine something original and beautiful, rather than simply remember the game. And around 1'33, that imagining builds into audio Nirvana... Although I have found other mixes to be more poignant and beautiful, I must say this is perfect. A definite repeat play, and another buried treasure I only recently discovered.

Godspeed, ye prince among men. May there be many pieces of Zelda-related poetry in your future.

This song is exactly why CotMM is one of my favorite mixers. Both of you have done an excellent job on this brilliant mix. Very haunting and, at times, utterly rocking. Much like the original Yamaoka tunes, though more like the harsh, original style of the first game met up with the melancholy, melodic style of the second, fell in love, and the result is this--their only child. Yeah, a great mix even if my nonsense metaphors don't show a high enouch appreciation. Around 2'10, when the opening to 'Laura' kicks in... That is truly a euphoric musical experience.