ReMix:Final Fantasy VIII "The Definition of Insanity" 3:29

Wanna know what the definition of insanity really is? Organizing eight FF8 album project mixpost writeups once this month, then deciding to do it ALL OVER AGAIN with another eight. :-P But the insanity's justified, people; Final Fantasy VIII: SeeDs of Pandora is, on a per track basis, the largest OC ReMix album EVER, and with so many worthy arrangements in the project deserving a spotlight, we had to be willing to -- at least temporarily -- let go of our collective sanity to get 16 featured mixposts for the album up in May (and fit a Zelda spotlight in there too, jeez). Last but in no way least is an absolutely WILD debut from Treyt (Trevor Tuls), who sliced, diced, and fused an original arrangement by The Vodoú Queen into an unorthodox metal/dubstep/trap chimera packed with action!

• Treyt: arrangement, mixing, production
• The Vodoú Queen: original arrangement, vocals, percussion, SFX, mixing
• ZackParrish: guitar
• Lucas Guimaraes: baritone saxophone
• Darkflamewolf: claps

Treyt arrived at OCR less than a year ago on a fact-finding mission with the introductory post of "Is this community worth joining?", and I (and several others) told him it'd indeed be worth it. He's already had several submissions wind up in our inbox, hung out with us on Discord, and been busy connecting with fellow community members as part of the SeeDs musician team, all a part of time well spent, including on this specific challenge:

"This track... hoo boy. This track is a remixed remix with 4 collaborators and a producer. When I started, I had no idea what I wanted to do, just that I was gonna see if dubstep would work. After working with the original remixer, Vodoú Queen, and getting a drop and some foundational sound laid out, I asked a guitarist for some sicc chugs so I could do a metal/dubstep fusion on the second drop. This intrigued another artist that was in on the conversation, and he suggested baritone saxophone. I honestly did NOT think he was serious at first, but apparently he was dead serious. Not expecting much, I said sure, see what you can come up with.

... and here we are. A dubstep/trap fusion with heavy guitar and, of all things, baritone sax. This track will not be the weirdest on the album, and maybe not even the most insane, but everyone that contributed are 100% my definition of insanity, and we had a ton of fun. Please enjoy."

For the record, Lucas is always dead serious, even when he's silly! We just had The Vodoú Queen (Angélique Vodoú) make her official OCR featured ReMix debut as a choir member in HeavenWraith's album contribution, and she's all over SeeDs of Pandora, one of several arrangers who really found their people amongst the album team and received helping hands in bringing their creations to life. This is one of OCR's rare arrangements of an arrangement, as not only did The Vodoú Queen create "The Definition of Lunacy" as part of SeeDs' bonus disc with ZackParrish, but that track then served as the source tune for this piece, as Angélique explained:

"Sometimes remix ideas come from being inspired by the source material, someone else's remix of that source, or another unrelated song altogether. Sometimes it just comes out of nowhere -- a "spur of the moment" idea. Sometimes it comes from a lot of planning and foresight into what one wants to do with it.

... And sometimes, it comes straight out of a meme.

The beginnings of doing a collab with Treyt on "Tears of the Moon" began with him taking the MIDI write-up/arranging I did for "The Definition of Lunacy", messing about with it (I believe on one of his live-streams of him working on FL Studio), and showing us in Discord group the end result. It effectively was a sped-up version of the "Lunacy" song, but with its instruments changed to sound like 80s horror trope-esque soundfonts. Its title? *SpoooooookyKirin* -- based on my nickname.

And I *loved* it.

A sped-up, hardcore dubstep version of the main source? I was immediately in on it.

Yes, it was just kinda a joke and Treyt seeing what he could do with it out of curiosity, but I approached him via DM soon after that to see how he felt about it and if he wanted to team-up to actually make it a thing. He said "yes"; the rest is history. :)

It was a blast working with Treyt, seeing his thought-process, how he works and shakes things up with what he's given. He asked me for various parts to help the vibe and flow of the Intro and Interlude/Trap ("slow") sections: SFX, vocal chop arps, drop builder drums. Some synth and orchestral string leads and pads... some percussion and natural drums... Seeing him take those elements and merge them the way he has done was intriguing to see, listen to and chat about. :D And, I am very happy and proud of what I was able to contribute to this (especially that Trap section!), and seeing so many others want to jump onboard and bulk this wonderful arrangement with their own interesting spin to it!

Hope people enjoy what we put together in this. "Lunacy" and "Insanity" are two sides of the same coin. Truly a wild ride, and truly is *The Definition of*...

Big shout out to Lucas, Zack, and DFW for joining in on the fun! <3"

At the end of the day, what's a video game music community supposed to be other than one big funhouse of creativity? :-) Album co-director Jorito also bore witness to the creation of this one in the album's final stretch, and he was impressed by the happiness -- coupled with the clear lack of rationality -- evident amongst the artists AND instrumentation choices:

"It was quite interesting to see the production of this track come to life in the album Discord channel from a distance; to see the energy between the producers and the performers and how the track seemed to come into being as a collection of inspired happy accidents that resulted in quite an epic remix. It's a hard-hitting, loud, and dramatic EDM track where you can clearly hear the "Tears of the Moon" references that Vodoú Queen used in her "Definition of Lunacy" arrangement on the album, yet taking it to new levels. Using a baritone saxophone in a dubstep track is also quite the inspired choice, and of course the djenty rhythm guitars also take things up a notch. As the only track of this style on the entire album it definitely stands out, and definitely also in a good way!"

Major genre transformations like this can be divisive, but the one thing they're never short on is creativity; what was originally a fairly incidental, subdued and ultimately stressful theme has been radically manipulated by Treyt & The Vodoú Queen into THE highest of multiple high energy offerings on the album! In pulling together DFW & Jorito's flood track selections for a second stretch of mixposts, I aimed for every single one of the eight included the featured ReMix debut of at least one musician (Mel Decision, metamoogle, Sorven, Daphne F., optimizasean, William Sandberg, feraldreams., Drakeld, Wurtzel, lobby of Warp Whistles Music, Becky Reid, John Bishop, The Vodoú Queen, and Treyt). The fact that I could even plan something like that is a huge testament to the hard work put in by Darkflamewolf & Jorito in opening the project up to many artists who were brand new to OC ReMix or potentially didn't see themselves as compatable with OCR's focus on interpretive arrangements. I've always said that people shouldn't put OCR's reputation on a pedestal. We're here to lift folks up, not beat 'em down, and -- whether it entails growing on your own or leveraging the power of collaborators -- we're open to everyone, and everyone IS capable of putting their creative stamp on VGM compositions in a way that meets a high bar of arrangement creativity and production quality. YOU CAN DO IT, folks!

Much love to Darkflamewolf and Jorito for facilitating the fun for all, ZackParrish and Lucas Guimaraes for being the key drivers of SeeDs' 5th bonus Ragnarok disc, and, finally, a gigantic thank you from all of OCR for everyone involved in putting this ambitious, mammoth, behemoth 5 1/2-hour, 80-track tribute together -- Final Fantasy VIII: SeeDs of Pandora, another definition of insanity! :-D