OCR04500 - *YES* Final Fantasy 14 "In Mountains We Will Sleep"

[Liontamer]

ReMixer Name:
- DarkeSword

Game Arranged:
- FINAL FANTASY XIV: Stormblood

Name of Arrangement:
- In Mountains We Will Sleep

Names of Individual Songs Arranged:
- The Measure of His Reach (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJm7ad2tJw8)
- Beyond the Wall (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWQfvnLyvxU)

Additional Information:
- Stormblood is an expansion for FFXIV, available for PS3, PS4, PS5, PC and Mac.
- Both source tracks are composed by Masayoshi Soken

Comments:
This one is perhaps one of the most personal remixes I've ever written.

In late 2022, my wife was expecting. We'd already suffered a loss at the end of 2020, so there was a lot of stuff going through my mind this time around. I started thinking a lot about what kind of dad I was going to be, and what kind of dad I wanted to be, which got me thinking about my own dad. My dad played a lot of music in the house growing up, and on top of all of the VGM I listened to as a kid, the Bollywood music he played was burned into my brain. In the past year or so I'd been re-listening and rediscovering Indian music; a lot of the stuff from movies I watched as a teenager by great composers like Jatin-Lalit, Shankar Ehsaan and Loy, and of course, A.R. Rahman. I listen to and appreciate it differently now, because I've got 20+ years of being a musician in me. So I thought a lot about that and how I wanted to share that with my son, because music is (along with food) one of the big two ways you can really connect with your heritage.

Final Fantasy XIV's Stormblood expansion is a game that centers colonial and post-colonial trauma in its handling of Ala Mhigo and Doma, about how an empire (Garlemald) steals what they have and leaves them broken, poor, and angry. Stormblood is often thought of as the East Asian expansion; there's quite a lot Japanese and Chinese aesthetic in there. But for me, when you look at the themes of imperialism and colonialism in the narrative, that says "India." India is a country that still deals with post-colonial trauma because an empire (Great Britain) stole what they had and left them broken, poor, and angry. "The Measure of His Reach," in the fiction of the game, is a song that is stolen by the empire but is ultimately reclaimed by the people. The motif is everywhere in the game, and its usage feels off until you understand the empire's thievery and who it really belongs to.

There's a phenomenal Bollywood movie from 2001 called "Lagaan." It means "tax," and it's about a village that makes a bet with the British Empire that if they win a cricket match against a team of British officers, they don't have to pay taxes for 3 years. It's an incredible, high budget movie that was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. The village in the movie has a real desert-and-mountains aesthetic, which reminds me a lot of the villages you find in some of Stormblood's areas. The music in this movie is by A.R. Rahman, and it's one of his finest works, and a massive influence on my own writing.

I was thinking a lot about all of this, and what "The Measure of His Reach" means and how it's used, and I wanted to try something. So I dug around and picked out some sample libraries I have from buying Komplete a few years ago. There's some synth stuff and a bed of cymbals from a jazz kit and the Una Corda piano, but mostly everything else is from the Spotlight: India collection. I did some big drums and a big percussive santur and contrasted it with the airy bansuri. "The Measure of His Reach" doesn't have a lot of material to work with, so shifted to "Beyond the Wall" for a bit in the middle for variety. I played around a little with the rhythm of the melody, putting upbeats on downbeats and vice-versa. I thought a lot about A.R. Rahman's music from "Lagaan." I wanted to evoke the joy of a big blue sky over dusty mountains.

The title of this track is "In Mountains We Will Sleep." I hope you all enjoy it.

Link to the file (WAV):
 

 

[Liontamer]

Funny that "The Measure of His Reach" is really unmemorable to me, while "Beyond the Wall" is so incredibly catchy, to me at least. Maybe it's "The Measure of His Reach" being a choral cacophony (which has a fun story behind it), but I liked your treatment here, and it was interesting hearing this take a more somber tone with the instrumentation of "Beyond the Wall".

Good groove here too, and fun to hear the "Prelude" used as transitional glue. Was disappointed to hear 3:33 & 4:15's sections sound like a cut-and-paste, but the writing and level of interpretation there are good enough to bear the repetition, and 3:54's doubled leads helped vary things up within the middle of that. Nice fadeout section at 4:58 revisiting ideas from around 1:58 that legit made me want the track to continue longer; great technique to keep the finish interesting and make a fade-out click.

Great inspiration for this one, Shariq! Here's to the kiddos that encourage us to be our best selves.

YES

[MindWanderer]

Seems like this piece is designed to resonate emotionally with listeners familiar with Stormblood and with a connection to Indian culture, history, and art. I am neither of those things, so to me this isn't anything more than a pretty piece of music.

It certainly is pretty, though!  The sitar and bongos are used tastefully with the synth soundscape. There are those two repeated sections, but the way the first repeated section is repeated again, but doubled, it's still effective at retaining interest, increasing energy slightly, and still tying it all together. This is how you can do copy-paste right.

The word for this as a package is "elegant." It's tasteful, it's culturally relevant. It's the sort of thing pretentious art critics gush over, and as that's basically my role as a non-musician judge here, I'm happy to give it a

YES

[prophetik music]

intro is really patient, slowing layering in some nicely-handled hand percussion alongside the santur when it comes in. the synth arp in the background simulating the traditional repeated sixteenth notes on the santur is a nice touch, as is the Prelude arp that you brought in. the bansuri at1:15 sounds pretty traditionally handled as well, with the little flips here and there. the instrumentation really comes together to make a great whole here.

at 1:47 there's a falloff into some very quiet exploration in the bansuri. this highlights one of my only real concerns with the piece, which is that the dynamic range is pretty huge. it could have used some more compression to bring this up a bit in volume without sacrificing the delicate timbres that you've got displayed here.

2:40 brings in the Beyond the Wall theme, and allows some room for exploring that very simple theme. we get a recap of the original melodic material around 3:35 or so, and at this point the backing instrumentation hasn't really changed at all for 4 minutes, and this section at 3:35 is very similar if not copied from earlier in the track. it's not until you layer the melodic material with harmonies at 4:37 that it's really unique.

overall, i think the word for the approach is 'measured'. there's no significant highs in dynamics, and your approach takes its time. i would have preferred less overall dynamic variation - the part at 1:47 is just too quiet - and 3:35 was a cut and paste from earlier in the track, but what's here sounds great and is a great adaptation of two themes in a thoughtful way. nice work.

 

 

YES

[Emunator]

What a delicate, measured approach! Really beautiful palette of melodic instruments combined with a lot of fun percussion and synths that give this a propulsive bounce. Mixing is clean and samples are very well sequenced, although I do agree with proph that a touch more master compression would make this sound a little fuller. The fusion of themes at the core of the arrangement is handled well, and of course the Prelude cameo is never NOT going to be welcomed! 

Welcome aboard, stranger! Good to have you back

YES