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OCR01292 - Shivers "Cerebral Rose Jam"


djpretzel
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I've never heard of the game, and I haven't listened to many Israfel mixes. I just downloaded this out of curiosity.

That woodwind at the beginning sounds awfully familiar to the stuff out of C&C:Generals.

The percussion is good, makes me think of people in the middle east wandering the desert under the hot sun.

Can't think of much more to say. Some parts seem messy, and it wasn't the epiphany of interest, but it was all right, good background music.

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Excellent remix. I've really come to love the mixes that are posted here that cover a less-covered genre. To be honest, I'm really not sure exactly what category this fits in...

But regardless, it's extremely enjoyable. IMO, most people can pull off the electronica bit. This, however, takes something else, and Israfel seems to have what it took. This is fantastic. Excellent work. I love the female "Ahhhhhhhh". The percussion is interesting and does a marvelous job in helping set the tone of the piece.

I could go on for a while, but I'll condense by simply saying I thoroughly enjoyed this, and I'd recommend it to anyone.

p.s. I'll be sure to put this on next time my girl is over here.

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Just gonna be a cheapo and paste my vgmix review for this one ^^

Oh! Glad you posted this one -- I'd heard it as a "WIP" sometime ago, and I'd since lost it. When you disappeared into the ether a few months back I thought I'd never hear it again :( Most of my comments will probably be rehashes of a review I wrote in the OCR WIP forum some time ago -- although that thread is probably long gone, I think it's the exact same mp3.

The problems with this one are pretty negligible, so I'll start with that:

- The vocals sound pretty good for the post part, but they can be distractingly synthetic at times. I get images of Celes singing the opera in Final Fantasy 6 :P Not much you can do about that issue though, short from buying some insanely expensive vocal software or hiring a singer.

- It makes good musical sense to have the piece exit the same way it entered; however, some of the later sections (from around 2:50 on) sound a little too rehashed. As I bounce back and forth between the two, I think I'm seeing some subtle differences in the percussion, but I think it's too subtle. Still, it's a "Jam", as the title would indicate, so it makes sense for the structure to be cyclical.

On to the good stuff.

- First and foremost, the emotional impact is excellent. I'm not sure of the exact technical reasons -- I just know that it brings out feeling in me; my chest muscles loosen and my lungs open up when I hear it. And not in some cheezy relaxation tape kind of way -- the closest comparison I'd draw is the way I feel when I listen to Indian classical music, which isn't terribly surprising, considering the tablas in the percussion. It's very meditative.

- Great job on picking out an ensemble. These instruments work very well together.

- You mentioned using some random time drift on the piano parts in an OCR thread, and I said I thought that was a bad idea. Well, at least in this case, I was wrong -- the piano sounds very natural. If you'd told me it was performed instead of sequenced, I'd have been fooled. The heavy player panning works out great too -- I love those first piano notes at 0:06 come in from the far far right.

- I really dig the vague catharsis at 1:51, it's really pretty.

- The echoing stacatto synth sound is used very effectively. The really fast arpeggios have an airy, whimsical sound which contrast nicely with the otherwise earthy groove.

Overall:

This is an old Fray favorite (Frayvorite?) that I'm happy to be reunited with. Highly reccomended.

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Particularly impressive work here; I genuinely loved it. It's one of my few 5s over at Ormgas.com, which make up only about 40 tracks out of the near-1300 mixes.

And again, if you aren't feeling the structure initially, just give yourself a few listens to acclimate yourself to the cadance of the track. Loop it, familiarize yourself with it and enjoy.

In any case, this was indeed superlative work, and I really enjoyed djp's write-up on the mix, which spelled out all the great things about it. His comments on the hypnotizing percussion, insectile arpeggios, and the opium-like daze of sounds, for example, articulated the strengths of the track and do their part to enhance the experience.

Great job on the balance of authenthic and synthetic sounding textures, absolutely. Though you frequently hear those two sonic styles combined within the electronic/orchestral hybrid tracks at OCR, you're not going to find anything else at OC that works quite like this that isn't in fact Israfel's.

Excellent shit, once again Michael. You guys out there be sure to follow my sage advice in the mix writeup, by the way. My bro, BGC knows what the deal is. Would I really lead y'all wrong? Of course not. Don't make me spell it out for you. ;-)

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You guys out there be sure to follow my sage advice in the mix writeup, by the way. My bro, BGC knows what the deal is.

yes I do. In fact, I need to go out and buy her one of those sheer body chemise thingies, and one of those sexy face-veils that arabic women wear, light up some candles and let her dance. :D

Man. This mix is more and more captivating the further I let it repeat.

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Amazing stuff here--very moody and relaxing. This'll be a good song to loop while I do my homework. Everything sounds so natural...just awesome shtuff going on. I think I'll go bone up on music theory now, so I can be more like Israfel, of course..

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First off, if Shivers had just one fan, it was probably me. Back in the day I ran Tojo Mojo'd Shivers Puzzle Solutions (at one point Alian's). I also rocked out to the medly of shivers music included on one of the Shivers 2 CDs.

So it is drawing on my considerable background in Shivers that I must say this mix is excellent. It uses the theme in a very subtle but recognizable fashion, remixing it into different styles in much the same way the game did.

This is going straight into heavy rotation :)

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  • 2 weeks later...
A popular observation. This isn't the first time that people have compared my music to the soundtrack in World of Warcraft. Which is mildly interesting insofar as I have honestly never played it or heard the soundtrack. No, seriously.

You should listen to "Dun Morogh" from the soundtrack. There's a striking similarity.

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I've been meaning to write a review of this since I first downloaded it on vgmix. I really did enjoy the combination of different timbres in the mix - the steady ethnic drum and bassline do a good job of bridging the gap between the jazz piano and the more overtly ethnic world-music instruments. The plucked synth is also used to an interesting effect, though I don't really like the way it's mixed.

I have also never been a fan of the choral stuff in Israfel's music (I'm just not a fan of that kind of thing in general), and this is no exception. Still, I've learned to deal with and it doesn't detract from the mix for me. Great work, dude.

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  • 9 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Man, I love this game. I played it a lot when I was younger... I wish I still had the CD, or I could find some place to download it... It'd be pretty small. It'd also be cool to find a quality version of the soundtrack somewhere.

But all in all, an excellent remix from an excellent game.

... and Shivers >>> Shivers 2

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  • 1 year later...

I concur with Larry.

In all seriousness, this is one of the coolest tracks on the site. Period.

If you haven't listened to this yet, do it now without hesitation or excuse. If you have, get your significant other and play it again.

If you don't have a significant other, then just go get your mom/sister. When you hear the musical sex that is this remix, you won't care who she is.

Seriously.

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Musical sex is right - holy crap, this remix is amazing. Considering that the whole thematic portion of the game is based on 8/16 bars of music, really amazing interpretation, holy crap. It's like a harem of Sierra wickedness in this piece.

Really nice solo violin sample too, really good. Also, I love how you play with the theme (in no way relating to musical sex, lol) and monkey with the listener's sense of expectation - if you've played the game, you know what I mean. Really great arranging and development, truly-truly well done!!

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  • 1 year later...
  • 4 months later...
  • Liontamer changed the title to OCR01292 - Shivers "Cerebral Rose Jam"
  • 6 years later...

I love the intro, piano, percussion - it has a super chill vibe.  The mastering is really well handled as well.  Not sure how I missed this years ago as @OceansAndrew said - but it's quite good.  I could totally mix this into a psytrance theme.  The entire song is absolutely beautiful.  Great work!

Edited by Xaleph
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