ReMix:The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons "Temple Spirits" 3:25

Rebecca E. Tripp's series of evocative, atmospheric temple theme arrangements continues with this gorgeous & a bit mysterious take on Oracle of Seasons:

"This is my arrangement of the "Temple of Seasons" track from Legend of Zelda, Oracle of Seasons. The Seasons and Ages soundtracks were composed by Minako Adachi and Kyohiro Sada. The original piece was a very short, yet hauntingly beautiful loop. Since it's once again getting to that beautiful time of year when I can feel the approach of autumn, I thought I'd do a new OoS piece! In this one, the only thing that was live was the vocals. Yeah, it's me singing. The vocals are sort of meant to indicate the presence of the four seasonal spirits living in the temple. On a side note, the story surrounding the temple brings to mind Greek mythology and its infamous "mystery cult," so I tried to really enhance the more otherworldly elements in play."

This definitely benefits from a sprinkling of additional instrumentation, and I love the way that the chromatic percussion blends with harp for ornate rising & falling motifs, almost like a fountain. Bonus points for effective, non-cheesy use of rain stick. Judges were unanimous; Emunator writes:

"I love the palette of instruments you chose to work with here! The eclectic mix of plucky, whimsical instruments, mixed with a wash of chimes and shaker effects all comes together quite nicely. I also appreciated the very sparse use of vocals for additional texture. The only weak link, sequencing-wise, would be the panflute, which has a very unnatural release that causes the notes to cut off abruptly and not join together naturally. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things.

Great expansion on a relatively simple theme - you managed to give it a totally unique character while still keeping the spirit of the original track present at all times. Nice work!"

Interesting, because to me the issue with the pan flute seemed like a too-slow attack envelope, not release. Either way, it did stick out to judges as the salient nit to pick, but none felt it too disruptive. Rebecca did some additive work to embellish & accentuate the source material, including a second ending of sorts, and judges appreciated how she was able to expand the brief original into something longer; as MindWanderer writes:

"Good work taking source material that's barely a song at all and turning it into something substantial. It's a weird one in that most of this is added material, but there's no question that the source material is used to the greatest extent possible. An interesting challenge met."

Indeed; on the more liberal/expansive side of what we've seen from the artist, but no less engaging & transporting, and again enhanced by some lovely vocalizing. Great work!