ReMix:Final Fantasy VII "Prayers of the Earth" 2:38

We just carefully tiptoed through a haunted church, so I'm happy to shelve our fears now that we're drifting toward "The Forested Temple" with RebeccaETripp's magical tribute to Final Fantasy VII!

"This is my arrangement of "The Forested Temple", aka "Temple of the Ancients", from Final Fantasy 7, originally composed by Nobuo Uematsu. Uematsu made a LOT of god tier "mysterious natural wonder" tracks throughout the series, and most of them felt more dynamic and inspired than this piece, such as "Conde Petie", "Phantom Forest", "Ice Caverns", "Evil Forest", "Into the Darkness", "Find Your Way", "Fate in a Haze", "Forest of Moore", "Crystal Cave", etc. It feels like a spiritual successor to "Phantom Forest". ^^

I tried to create a sense of spiritual activity, flora, fauna, and psychic residue. I wanted the track to sound "haunted", but also holy and pure, as though echoing with prayers and teeming with life forms - past, present and future. I do feel like I put a lot of my own personality into this one!

This track was nominated and voted for by my patrons on Subscribestar. If you would like to have some influence over what music I compose each month, you can subscribe to me here: https://subscribestar.com/rebeccaetripp."

It's not surprising that Rebecca doesn't classify this theme in the upper echelons of Uematsu's "mysterious natural wonder" themes since its instrumentation doesn't sound particularly mysterious. That's why it also isn't surprising that Tripp's treatment leans into her alchemistic bag of organic-minded instrumentation tricks to graft on that air of mystery, execution praised by judge MindWanderer:

"It's typical Tripp orchestration, which is to say it's really good. It is quite short, but it's long enough to get the point across, even though it ends a little abruptly. I wish it resolved in a more interesting way, but it's sufficient as it is."

I actually felt the resolution was pretty well done in terms of aiming for something gradually diminuitive from 2:24 until the end, but I was simpatico on how beautifully Rebecca's overall orchestration approach imbued captivating and vibrant energy. Judge prophetik music also touted Tripp's piece as authentically channeling the "Forested Temple" vibe:

"what's here is unique and a creative take that draws from elements of the in-game situation to influence the arrangement choices, which i appreciate a lot."

Meanwhile, fellow panelist Emunator spoke to the strength of some of Tripp's regular techniques, including her evolving instrumentation, both its textural variations & interplay:

"Lovely variety of sounds here - I wasn't sold on the intro, but once the various winds came in, this arrangement came alive. The interplay between each of the different lead instruments gives this a fun call and response feeling."

Alluring stuff, particularly Tripp's tremolo string writing, while the overall texture is solid and achieves the mystical mood she's going for. The countermelodies having a more ghostly quality underneath the melody (e.g. 1:01-1:20) was a wonderful touch. Good job with the instrumentation tradeoff for the melodies, a tactic that's worked very well for Rebecca, as well as her signature percussive ornamentation. Shining, shimmering, splendid. :-)