ReMix:Final Fantasy VII "Over the Horizon" 3:05

It's time to fire up Rebecca E. Tripp's latest featured ReMix, this time a measured orchestral interpretation of an FF7 classic, "On Our Way." The artist writes:

"This one is quite conservative, but I figured I'd give it a shot!

This is my arrangement of "Ahead on Our Way" from Final Fantasy 7, originally composed by Nobuo Uematsu. It's the theme for the town of Kalm and a couple other places. This happens to be one of my favourite tracks from FF7, so I was happy it was chosen. It's iconic Uematsu, for sure! ^_^ I like to try to create peace sometimes. I hope this cover will give someone out there a sense of restfulness, beauty, and joy.

This track got nominated and voted for by my subscribers on Subscribestar. If you'd like to have some influence on what music I create each month, you can subscribe to me as well."

I applaud Rebecca for not pysching herself out of submitting this due to the piece being melodically conservative; there's more than one way to approach an interpretive arrangement! Uematsu's original is relaxing yet essentially fixed at one low-key energy level, so Rebecca's light ensemble approach shined via the instrumentation selections & tradeoffs that provide subtle contrast throughout, winning the judges approval with a lean toward the arrangement over the production. prophetik music often says what's on my own mind (but meaningfully informed by a strong musical background. ;-D). As I concurred in my own leadoff vote, the realism factor isn't there, sure (though ornamentations like the ones first introduced at :28 are always a nice touch). It was a collectively close call from the judges, but the seesaw tilted toward a solid & positive outcome according to Brad:

"i found the stilted samples to be much more irritating, notably in passages with thinner instrumentation or solo leads. however, the arrangement was very well handled from an instrumentation standpoint. there's a lot of passing the melody around, there's a variety of orchestral timbres explored, and as expected from Rebecca the OST is represented strongly."

After listening through several times, you can also scan through this ReMix in intervals and quickly confirm how Tripp traces a nice little up-and-down arc, starting very thin, subtlely building the understated layering up, then winding it back down, all while ensuring the textures never stayed in the same place for too long or dragged on. Not that this piece needs it, but this arrangement is also the kind you'd love to hear live in a small hall to enjoy all of the creative nuances.

I respect Rebecca's drive to almost always look forward with her musical efforts; that means when production/realism issues stand out, we don't often hear touchups or resubmissions because she's already moved onto being productive with her next concept. And there's something to be said about not wasting time turning around when you're focused on moving forward; she's ahead on her way. I'd nonetheless love to hear Tripp take time out to improve the humanization and vibrancy of her solely sampled pieces, particularly these delicate light ensembles; these occasional pitstops might feel like rubbernecking, but would ultimately help an already talented mover and shaker move forward even faster. ;-)

When it comes to this style, no one flies the banner higher and prouder than Rebecca, who's now super close to that nearly unthinkable posted ReMix record held by site founder djp! Can Rebecca shake the firmament of this website and surpass 82 OC ReMixes? Let's help get her well on her way with the next mix, another milestone of her phenomenal progress...