ReMix: Final Fantasy 'AfterLife'

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5,002,296 bytes, 4:10, 160kbps

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GrayLightning gives us a multi-tempoed ethnic/new-age/electronica arrangement from the granddaddy of Final Fantasies, with some very cool percussion that makes the track - love the articulations here, the world-beat feel it lends, and the way at 1'36" he successfully transmutes the water of life and turns the beat around into something faster without losing the same appeal. You've got a mostly piano-driven piece that features violin, bell synths, very sweet phased synth fx, mucho cymbal rolls, a neat choral swell that comes in during an extended drum solo towards the end, some ethnic plucked strings, traditional orchestral strings, and a good ear for taking a simple motif and morphing it into something that relies very heavily on percussion - absent in the original - without relying TOO heavily and having such emphasis be at the expense of the arrangement. This sounds like the original taken and given a makeover with a lot of the same sensibilities that fueled Mitsuda's Xenogears soundtrack - a melodic core with free reign given to percussive and ethnic divergence. I like how GL's style has matured to the point where he can transcend genres adeptly and mix ingredients from each where they are appropriate - the heavy rhythmic influence on this piece and some of the (basically) solo percussion bits are something he might not have tried way back when, but he pulls it off here just dandy. The ReMixer writes:

"This is the theme that plays when the party loses. The original is a very short repetitive 40 second theme that loops. There's a new intro and ending. I tried to do a lot with it in particular from 1:35 - 3:09 with a lot of new section, new countermelody focus, some melodic expansion that sounds arabic and a lot of unique things. Then at the end parts I bring together the opening section that is sort of more like the original with the new ideas, then finished it off with a new ending."

Very strong experiment from GL, just as good as his less experimental pieces, which is as good an indicator of a risk worth having made as anything else.

― djpretzel