ReMix:The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild "Foraging Melodies" 4:58

Rebecca E. Tripp continues on a roll of superb mixes which both uphold her own high standards & explore some new approaches/ideas. Here she expands on the piano-driven "Hyrule Field (Day)" theme from Breath of the Wild by embellishing with orchestral instrumentation & weaving everything together a bit more, while still managing to maintain the original feel:

"This is my cover of "Hyrule Field (Day)" in Breath of the Wild (the OST was originally composed by Manaka Kataoka, Yasuaki Iwata, and Hajime Wakai). The overworld music in BotW is stark, sporadic, playful, and contemplative and lends itself well to exploration, scavenging, and daydreaming. Because the original version was just piano, I had to leave in some of it. I wanted to expand on it while simultaneously maintaining some of the integrity of the original "vibe." This was a very challenging arrangement for me, since I used a full orchestra's worth of layers to phrase what was once a minimalistic solo track, and I needed all of those delightfully strange (and somewhat disjointed) shards of melody to fit together. I kind of felt like an archeologist or a historian piecing together the broken past of Hyrule -- only with sound! ^_^ I had to elaborate and extrapolate... I had to repeatedly ask myself: Does this fit here? Does that go there? Is this how these two shards might be connected? Is this one of the hidden truths of this melody? Appropriately, composing this was a very joyful "sandbox" experience for me. It was a fun challenge!"

Very cool; not everyone can write about their own music (or anyone else's) with such resonance & relatability - I regularly find myself nodding & being able to cleanly match up what Rebecca's describing in text with what she's painted in sound. It makes it harder for me to offer any profound insights of my own, but I certainly don't object :) The initial version we received was mixed pretty darn quiet, but she graciously provided a louder mixdown based on panel feedback. Judges were unanimous - Emunator writes:

"Of all the minimalist Zelda arrangements I've heard from Rebecca lately, I feel like this is far and away the most fully-realized and successful. Although the original source is very abstract and doesn't provide much to latch onto, the original writing in this arrangement helps seamlessly weave together the fragments of original melody into something much more concrete. The instrument tones were all full-bodied and complemented each other well, nothing sounded egregiously unrealistic. Particularly, I found the low-register piano to be particularly moody and helped punctuate the track in a very dramatic fashion. There's a lot to love here."

There is indeed; as she herself describes, she had a specific goal/strategy with this mix, and it *worked* - always love it when a plan comes together. The Breath of the Wild OST was initially polarizing, to some extent, and part of that was a scarcity of pieces following a more traditional song structure, I think. This mix bridges the gap, to some extent, by adding some (beautiful) adhesive material (aka "glue") that makes it a more linear, flowing experience, while still retaining much of the source aesthetic. A lovely, thoughtful ode to a game I need to get back to & beat; highly recommended!