ReMix: The Legend of the Mystical Ninja 'Asian Twilight'

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I think if I played an ethnic, Asian instrument other than the shakuhachi, I would secretly harbor a hatred/jealousy of shakuhachi players... the sheer number of tracks the shaku has popped up in, from the intro to Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer to Enigma's Sadeness, has to make it one of the most gratuitous "ethnic" instruments ever. However, on OCR, it's not all that common, and GrayLightning puts it to good use in this ambient-but-melodic ReMix from Legend of the Mystical Ninja. Also featured are lush strings, low-impact but effective drums and percussion, a variety of synth effects, a plucked, kotoish timbre, and extremely well-incorporated vocal samples from Panzer Dragoon Orta. I say "extremely" because the tempo matches up and they're used almost rhythmically, while also adding ambience and atmosphere to an already atmospheric composition. This is more melodic stuff than we sometimes see from GL, and is probably my favorite of his mixes to date because I think it strikes a very nice balance between atmosphere and compositional substance - it's still more of a "setting" than a "narrative", to use the literary metaphor, but it's a place that tells a story, which is a combination that works really well when the ingredients are all there and mixed with nuance and precision. The original is, as GL noted in his email, more "Japanese", and not quite so serious - this arrangement takes a fairly indicental theme and raises the drama and scope, creating an enveloping, transporting soundscape that's also got a musical endoskeleton to match the pretty surface. A different type of ambient mix, and a truly interesting interpretation. Recommended.

― djpretzel