ReMix:Final Fantasy VII Remake "Howling and Hollow" 6:14

Time for a scorching, powerful rendition of a recent VGM vocal theme, with Earth Kid and Erika Richards' DoD team-up on Nobuo Uematsu's "Hollow" from Final Fantasy VII Remake! For Earth Kid, FF7 was foundational to her as a gamer, and the heat of this new song lit a fresh & persistent flame:

"Final Fantasy VII was my very first RPG, which I started playing at age 7 back when it first came out. It absolutely changed my life. I had a blast playing the remake, too, and the new original song, "Hollow", blew me away at the end. The lyrics - which are essentially about grief - resonated with me personally. I'd wanted to cover it for a while and I first had the idea 3 years ago, but was finally able to finish it last year.

The style of this arrangement was influenced by classic rock ballads with folk elements. I played the Irish bouzouki, piano/keys, accordion, harp, and got some practice with belting, which I've been doing a lot more of over the last few years. Erika contributed guitars, bass, and drums, and really helped bring my vision to life. I couldn't have pulled off the sound I wanted without her!

I also incorporated a couple of references to other FFVII tracks. The harp arpeggio (...harpeggio?) during the guitar solo is inspired by the "Prelude", and the one during the second bridge was modeled after the harp part in "Dear to the Heart". During the second and third choruses, the accordion (doubled by the harp and Mellotron) briefly quotes the melody of "On That Day, Five Years Ago". I realized while arranging that the chord progression in the chorus kind of worked with that minor key version of the main theme, so, of course, I had to do something with it.

I've been wanting to explore rock and metal genres more in my music lately (going back to some of my old roots), and this was a great outlet for that. It was a very cathartic song to work on, and I loved playing and singing it. I poured my soul into this track, and I hope you enjoy it!"

The passion poured into EK's performance is certainly shining brightly and undoubtedly thanks to Erika Richards, who contributed several parts, including the vibrant, mission-critical guitars:

"This track was a lot of fun for me to play on. I usually only do distorted rock/metal styles, but for this one I also played acoustic and clean electric. I enjoy how the layers turned out with the acoustic and electric guitars stacked on top of each other. It really adds some depth to the rhythm section of the arrangement.

I also did something new for me, which was writing and playing a 3-part harmony for the guitar solo. I rarely do harmonies on my solos, so going for a 3-part was a fun way to change up the way I usually approach solos.

My exposure to FF7 is much more recent than EK's, but I still have this fondness towards the game that is similar to that of games I played 20 years ago. Getting to work with her on this arrangement was a blast, and I'm very proud of how the song came out!"

Wonderful to have Erika creatively stretch herself here, going outside of her style and compositional comfort zones to liven up a fun and interpretive arrangement opportunity with Earth Kid, one years in the making (which is sometimes how these projects wind up). Judge Hemophiliac was the most effusive vote of confidence on the panel for the duo's uplifting collab, so it makes sense to bask in his earnest enthusiasm:

"Absolutely love this, incredible performances. Hollow was one of my favorite parts of Remake and it fit in so well.

Structurally very close to Hollow and feels very conservative because of that, but after multiple listens I started picking up the very subtle nods to the other tracks (Prelude and Dear to the Heart). That's just due to the nature of harp inside of a rock/metal tune that's more full and heavy. The countermelody writing is excellent, and fits in so subtle that it lets multiple listens have huge repeat value. I'll definitely be listening to this one again and again.

Fantastic lock-in on the vocal harmony, almost too perfect. If you used pitch correction at all, I'd say you could probably even lighten it some to keep a little bit of rawness in there.

Amazing!"

Yep, there's nothing wrong with being structurally conservative around here, as long as the differences in the arranged presentation are meaningful; Erika and EK's instrumentation changes as well as the other FF7 theme cameos make sure to tick those boxes, not to mention the wholly different tone to Earth Kid's singing compared to the source. We've got fun textural changes throughout, and the lil' hits of older Uematsu classics were a nice, subtle nod to the original Final Fantasy VII, plus the performances all felt very cohesive. Just as Hemo (and Chimpazilla) said while evaluating this, I love it, this is strong!

I've also had the great fortune of being able to tell Earth Kid in person how much I enjoy her vocal performances, so I hope she keeps beating down the door to eventually snag some pro projects -- even if it's not a personal goal -- only because she's worthy and she's got the chops. Cheers to a cool personalized cover that contrasts with the original song thanks to more graceful vocals from EK and more gritty rock from Erika. :-) Let's keep our fingers crossed that this isn't EK & Erika's last collaboration -- may they shine bright (at least) once more! ;-)