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OCR02100 - Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker "Rime of the Wanderin' Seafarer"


djpretzel
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ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME. This should've been in OCR long ago. Glad zyko got around to do so as I too have been wanting this gem to have more exposure.

Been a fan since its DoD release, and I also think it's one of zyko's best offerings. Didn't know it was so personal to him...but I guess that's what made this track to be that damn good.

Dragon Roost is one of the best tracks in TWW, and zyko's take does it a lot of justice. Great vocals, perhaps in my top 10 favorites when it comes to OCR vocal tracks. The lyrics really fit in without being too Zelda-centric. Has a lot of parallelisms with Tenacious D's "Wonder Boy"...but a lot more serious of course. I especially like the performance of the chorus. Excellent guitar playing. Very nice and moody atmosphere particularly in the beginning with the beach soundscape and faint flute (of a Zelda classic tune)...and towards the end as well with that flute once again.

One nitpick is the breakdown mid-track sounds out of place at first despite the cool guitar playing. That doesn't take the greatness this track offers though. Keep it up, man!

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This gave me shivers. In an Odd way is Reminds me of Joanna Newsom (

)in terms of Lyrics. But of course the guitar playing is very different and Beautifully crafted to the story. Having just moved to the surreal seaside Uni town of Aberystwyth, this really connected with me. Thanks for posting it up.
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I remember this track from the DoD - unfortunately I didn't really get a good chance to absorb it then due to lots of things going on with my life, but it's no surprise why this made it to first place for the month back then. It is full of soul that is pretty rare in music.

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.

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As far as I'm concerned, this is zyko's best offering so far. Beautiful guitar playing, good vocals, and awesome, fitting lyrics. 2:25 onwards, when the song picks up a bit, sounds rather epic. 2:50 adds a little bit of caribbean flavour to the mix (same around 4:15 and 5:00), and the following breakdown is very interesting, having a dramatic feeling to it.

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.

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:) thank you, my friends - i'm moved by your words and it reminds me how much of a pleasure it is to share my work with you. thank you and i'm glad you enjoyed it

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 :)

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  • 4 weeks later...

I already commented on this on the YouTube posting, but there's a lot to say about this mix and the character limit on YouTube comments doesn't allow me to do this proper justice.

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 really 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.

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