ReMix:Final Fantasy VI "Royal Blood, Fraternal Love" 4:38

pu_freak follows up his 2011 debut PokeMix with this lush & delicate piano + accompaniment arrangement from Balance & Ruin. The star here is definitely piano, but the string/choral pads and occasional flute flourish add warmth & context. Pieter writes:

"When I started this mix, I wanted to expand on a manner of arranging that I also did with a track of mine for the Seiken Densetsu 3 album. This was to not just take the source, modify it a little, expand it a little and then call it a day, but rather to use the source in a different way. For this mix, I've enormously slowed down the source and then added additional melody to complement it. I actually play almost every note of the source in the first two minutes, but it can be hard at first to recognize it, because of said adjustments. Of course, when I auditioned and got accepted for the FFVI album with this mix, I needed to make it more recognizable, so there are some "traditionally" arranged parts of the mix to make it really clear what the source is. At the end, I finish with the fully original source.

As for the feeling of the mix, I wanted it to be befitting of a king, but also have the peace and impact of the strong bond between the brothers (hence the name of this mix). I think it worked well: it's something that could be played in the ballroom of a castle, but is still very emotional and calm."

SPEAKING of ballrooms... every last one of you should buy & read the entire Mistborn trilogy, from Brandon Sanderson, because it's awesome :) I just finished it, and Anna was actually reading the second book when I was on the third, and she's now finished everything as well, and now we're BOTH huge fans. Semi-sequiturs aside, Pieter succeeds in his described goal of striking a good balance between recognizable source and more interpretive passages; I don't think you'll need to strain too much to hear Nobuo in there, but I think you'll appreciate the re-contextualization & original writing incorporated to accomplish the shift. If I had to nitpick, I'd say that the accompanying choral, string, and wind samples employed are a little static and don't match the crisper & more dynamic piano, but it's not really an issue: the arrangement is gorgeous, the performance is emotive, and the end result is a moving, creative E&S ReMix that fit in quite well on B&R!