ReMix:Final Fantasy VI "The Hot Pink of Blues" 5:05

Let's keep right on truckin' - postin' pace has been pickin' up and judgin' should be gettin' in gear, too. It's so exciting I'm droppin' my G's left 'n right. On the topic of progress & excitement, I'm pleased and honored to announce the addition of OA as our latest judge. I'm sure listeners and artists alike will show him the same adulation, respect, and deference the rest of the panel has enjoyed for so long, or at least not kick/punch him repeatedly in the head. Mr. Luers is of course the director of the upcoming FF4 album project as well as a talented ReMixer. Beyond that, he's also been providing artists with a ton of great feedback on our ReMix Comments/Reviews forum. Oh yeah, he did the website for Summoning of Spirits, too. And the artwork/website for Thieves of Fate. He's also a dad, a great musician, and an all-around premuim person. He also invented the hovercraft and was the first man to scale K2 in under 45 minutes. He grows his own bacon. For all we know. It's possible. But even if he didn't, he still gets two thumbs up in our book, and should be an awesome addition to the panel, so give a warm welcome.

Right, then - ahead on our way! 9 out of 10 doctors will tell you that kids love the rich, creamy taste of Final Fantasy 6, but 'Cayenne' (aka 'Cyan') hasn't gotten as much love as 'Relm,' 'Kefka,' or of course 'Terra'. As a side note, we saw the full opera from FF6 performed at Distant Worlds on Saturday, and it rocked. Profusely - mad props to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for a very polished performance, and MAN are the acoustics in the Meyerhoff hall perfect. While we're on the subject of kickass, back to the mix: Prince of Darkness, aka Tony Dickinson, is here to give this theme some love, blues/rock style. His initial cut was a bad enough dude to win the June '08 DoD, but when he subbed it to us we did notice some snap, crackle, and pop issues of the non-cereal variety with the production. If we had to post it that way, we still might have, but fortunately PoD not only cleaned all that up, he summoned a 5th level Shnabubula to add some extra flavor. Larry sums these changes up:

"We later on sent Tony a copy of the judgments so he could read the production crits brought up and make some tweaks, which he addressed nicely. He also recruited Shnabubula to add some cool original comping wankery on top of some of the mellower sections. Tony mentioned that Sam cooked up his stuff in a matter of hours after offering to do it, so definitely props to Sam for some nice additions that further fleshed out the arrangement."

It's a great mix, and the production tweaks and extra bubula only made it greater. Here's the original submission email Mr. Dickinson sent in:

"This is only my second major video game remix released. I've always been the lurking type, developing my arranging skills deep in the shadows, and only doing something when I felt I was finally ready. This song was my second entry into the Dwelling of Duels competition (and second victory), and I had an overwhelming response. I've always loved really emotional-sounding tunes, despite me being mostly a mechanical, precise, heavy metal robot. With this song, I brought in all of the jazz and fusion influences I could muster and pretty much slapped it together as I went through it. Normally, I would do almost all of the arranging in a notation program, but this time I used more instinct in a more real-time setting.

I love this type of genre, because it also helped me express my bass skills more, considering bass is really my primary instrument; whereas, 99% of the time the guitar would be in the spotlight. It's not entirely out of the spotlight in this, of course, as it offers some of the most emotion in the solos."

So, I actually arranged this theme myself way back in 2002 for the KFSS Squaredance album. True story. This is... well, quite a bit better; I did a funky electronica thing that, while I still enjoy listening to it, hasn't aged all that well. I'm glad that, in addition to 'Cyanide,' we've now got a badass blues rock arrangement of this theme. Now, if you bother to read the judges decision, you'll notice there was quite a bit of disagreement over whether this arrangement is too liberal. The dreaded 50% rule was invoked and rebuffed, feelings were hurt, lives were lost, nations crumbled, and I even had to step in and say a few words. Because this mix does SOUND great, some of you may simply scratch your heads and dismiss judge concerns as hogwash and/or poppycock. We won't lose any sleep if you do, but we won't change our minds either - that arrangement is important, that a spectrum of interpretation exists that ranges from liberal to conservative, and that certain mixes will often test the extremes of either end of that spectrum. I'm absolutely convinced artists in this community could make fantastic original tracks, insert four seconds of the Mario theme on the end, and still have the result be something I'd enjoy listening to. Well, fairly convinced, at least. But tracks like that wouldn't be VGM arrangements, and at some point - while necessarily subjective - there does need to be meaning attached to that label.

In this instance, a rough majority (including myself) felt that there was enough Cyan here. It's an off-cyan, probably more of a turquoise in the end, but the hue is recognizable, if you'll pardon my extended metaphor. It also happens to be a fantastic piece of music with great performances, which certainly doesn't hurt, either. Blues & jazz are improvisational and meandering almost by definition, so it's difficult to draw a line in the sand when it comes to "soloing on top of chord progressions," which there is admittedly quite a bit of, here. It's the type of line-in-sand that's bound to move back and forth a bit, too, since each mix that enters its proximity is always going to be unique. Basically, for the judges panel, this mix was a beautiful headache, but for you, it's just beautiful. We welcome OA into our fold of thankless adjudicators - he's got this and worse to look forward to - and of course thank Tony (and Sam) for an awesome, improved debut FF6 mix that's a definite blast.