Silent Hill 4: The Room "Dreamy Ring Around the Forest" 8:12

After a drought when it came to Silent Hill series ReMixes, last year was all about abundance, with a half dozen coming through! We're happy to keep the franchise love going with a brilliant spin on a Silent Hill 4 vocal theme assembled by collaborative superstar TheManPF! Just take a gander at the live performer lineup:

• TheManPF - arrangement, sequencing, mix, electric guitar, vocals
• Zach Chapman - bass
• Earth Kid - vocals
• Triple B Music - acoustic guitar
• Sean R. Hanson - keyboards (organ)
• Gamer of the Winds - flute

TheManPF had some old school scene legends to thank for Akira Yamaoka & Joe Romersa's song landing on his radar (What a weird source!):

"Hmmm, what can I say about this? This is a hard rock arrangement of "Cradle of Forest" from the 2004 video game Silent Hill 4: The Room. I did this originally for Pixel Mixers' Silent Hill: Monochrome Dreams album after Hashel invited me. Recorded all the way back in 2023, but it took a while to come together. I'm not too familiar with Silent Hill, surprisingly. However, I did play Silent Hill 4 a while ago, but I never actually finished it, so I never got to hear "Cradle of Forest" as it plays in the credits. The reason this song wormed its way into my ears was thanks to none other than DoD legends Ailsean and norg, back in 2021 when DoD had done its own vocal month.

This interpretation made me fall in love with this composition, and, naturally, I dig it way more than the original. I've been singing along to it a lot since I heard it, so when I had the opportunity, it came to mind immediately to do "Cradle of Forest". This version I did here is heavily inspired on Ailsean/norg's version though, obviously, I added a lot of my own flairs to it. I was looking for something somewhat faithful, with a lot of emphasis on the slow, hard rock, ballad-y style of the song, while bringing out more colorfulness with some added flutes, organs, and acoustic guitars. I also decided that a vocal duet would be way more fun and would make the whole thing feel more varied. I modified the structure of the song a bit to make it feel more like a slow burn and "earn" its length. As much as I love this source, I always thought it was a bit long for a standard rock structure, and I wanted to play a bit more with that.

I got a bunch of really awesome collaborators. This is one of my biggest collabs to date (tied with "Rib Eye Rodeo"). I don't usually arrange for big groups, but whenever I do something for Pixel Mixers, they always insist gather as many collabers as you want, so I rolled with it, and ended up with this truly incredibly talented lineup.

They all brought it, so they all sound great in this. The only one who fell short was me, funnily enough. I did the second set of vocals and all of the electric guitars (and arranging and sequencing and mixing), but I ended up dissatisfied with the mix that ended up on the official album (sorry, Hashel ): ), so I went ahead and tweaked a bunch of the mix, redid all guitars, redid all my vocals, redid the drums. Barely touched the others' stems really, they were all perfect already, but I needed to be a better glue for all of them. I am very satisfied with this arrangement now.

Just like last time, I'm crediting the peeps behind the album this was featured on, Silent Hill: Monochrome Dreams, even if they're not featured on this version, just because they're cool people:

Production - Hashel
Mastering - Erika Richards
Artwork - Leo Val

Hope you enjoy. (:"

This sounds lovely right out the gate, with a shimmering, entrancing intro that sounded completely sounded pro, right from an 80s J-pop CD (nice work!). Even the sequenced strings are mixed relatively well and occupy a solid space in the texture. Great choice by TheManPF involving Earth Kid with the vocals to provide a new dimension to the presentation of the lyrics. Judge and fellow DoD mainstay jnWake did this extended piece justice with an equally lengthy play-by-play:

"A longie!

Starts with some neat pads that abruptly cut off around 0:20 for the actual intro. [...] Acoustic guitar plays the chord progression from the source's intro, but each chord lasts longer than in the original. I love the acoustic/clean combination and tone, sounds great. At 0:48 we move to the verse with a kinda 1:1 approach, keeping melodies and chords intact. Earth Kid's voice sounds great here (as expected) [...] At 1:13 we return to the source's intro, with the main melody being played on flute. As usual, great playing from GotW. [...] 1:41 leads to a new verse with PF's vocals now. Another good performance here! There's also some fun bass noodling by Zach. At 2:09 we move to the source's pre-chorus, played on flute rather than drums. [...] Drums also make their entrance here. [...] Vocals re-join at 2:33 as a duet, I love how that sounds. Sean's organ also joined the mix alongside the drums with some fun lines [...] There's a break around 3:00 with flute and another verse. Next, there's a guitar solo following the pre-chorus motif and then we have another repeat of the vocal duet with extra harmonies. At 4:27 we finally get the actual chorus from the source! There's one vocal track at 4:49 [...] We then move to a repeat of the source's intro, with instrumentation more akin to the original's. 5:16 features a break, echoing the one from the source, but much more creative and interesting IMO (love the acoustic guitar noodling). At 5:42 we have the string "solo" from the source, first on strings and then on guitar. 6:05 introduces a piano break (first piano part in the song?) and soon the vocal duet joins singing the chorus as we move to a proper full chorus. Track begins to close at 7:12 with a string melody over the verse chord progression and then it closes with a final acoustic guitar section.

Quite a lengthy track! Arrangement's very cool. Although chords, melodies and genre don't really change much, you completely restructured the track and made it your own. While the original starts right away with drums and a rock mood, your take starts more calm and slowly builds up to the rock mood. [...]

Overall though, I think this is fantastic. Performances are all awesome, with the vocal duet being a really cool standout"

OCR poobah DarkeSword had to close out the decision for this one, and briefly but effusively put it over the top:

"Rare to hear a remix that's so elevated above the original. Reframing this as a duet is inspired. Vocal performances are gold. [...]

Love this. Thank you for sending it to us. It's a YES from me."

Beyond the vocals, the instrumentation overall was awesome as well. A tip of the cap again to Ailsean & norg for making TheManPF aware of this theme, thus planting the seeds for TheMan's own tribute, because we've got a spirited source choice with solid instrumentation choices and incredibly cohesive performances across the board by all six performers. A lengthy listen, yes, yet well worth the temporal price of admission. This is cool as hell!