ReMix: Illusion of Gaia 'Will's Journey'

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Took awhile, but Wintermute gives us our first Illusion of Gaia ReMix. I admittedly never played this SNES RPG from Enix beyond the very early stages, for one reason or another, but it was fairly big at the time. Nintendo sorta "borrowed" it from Enix as I remember and hyped it themselves to a great degree. From the outset, you know this mix is going to be a bit different - clean electric guitar to the left and gamelan off center start things off, with a groovy stereo breakbeat rhythm fading in to get things going. The flute that comes in is a bit marginal and unprocessed, but well-articulated and joined soon after by a very deep, stacked lead synth that's quite beefy in da mix. Then we get some meaty, distorted shred guitar work, then some cool string arpeggios over stripped-down percussion. Things change quite often in this arrangement, but the overall flow is maintained. There's skillful blending of both more traditional and "exotic" acoustic instruments with some very respectable synth textures and electric guitar to boot - Wintermute's got a lot on the table, soundwise, and this variety helps, esp. when everything's integrated well. There could have been an extended, kickass solo somewhere in here to fill it out a bit more and reinforce the last iteration of the chorus, but other than that, I'm diggin' it. The use of gamelan (or tibetan bells-ish) chromatic percussion alone makes it a standout, along with a great fretless bass and a dozen other goodstuffs to please your ears. Definite strongsauce from Wintermute, and a great introduction to the Gaia soundtrack. Recommended.

― djpretzel