ReMix: Final Fantasy IX 'Hunter's Community Chest'
Wow... I'm in Delaware. Drove down Thursday night for the Rehoboth Film Festival this weekend - nothing like going 15mph over, looking out for state troopers, blasting The Ken Song, driving past the stinky chicken farms on the backroads of slower, lower Delaware. Attended an interesting if brief presentation on film scoring and saw the dramatically-revised director's cut of Donnie Darko. Good stuff. I'm writing this review remotely, so typing and listening circumstances are less-than-ideal, but I wanted to get Shnabubula's VERY different, unique, distinct - hell, let's just say it: downright weird ReMix posted this weekend. Mr. bubula has done some very unusual things to the FF9 OST - dark, sordid things, no doubt prohibited by arcane laws in the red state of your choice. Judge Dan B. was this mix's biggest advocate, and his glowing review was both eloquent and bordering on evangelism for this very challenging piece, so I'll give him his piece:
"The very beginning synthwork is a subdued wah'ed line that very adeptly transmogrifies into the Hunter's melody. Once that rockin' main melody kicks in, some very abstract yet perfectly-suited ep chords back it up. I'm drooling over these chords. Great work. The mix then takes a surprising turn and plays through a minimal iteration of the main theme, before delving into a polyrhthmic drum feature that exhibits advanced knowledge of the drum kit. Then, the crazy bass synth launches into an atonal, chaotic run that smoothly transitions to a chilled out, jazzy section. The chordwork here is nothing short of beautiful. The utilization of the modified original melody with the new chord structure makes it seem fresh yet at the same time familiar. Suddenly, it plunges into a mean, minor-keyed motif. Very good use of key change to advance the song along. Following this section, sheer chaos erupts. I'm not sure how keen I am on some of these rhythmic discomboblations, but it generally works well enough to segue into the conclusion."
The judges panel acknowledged what the mixer is doing, here, but at the same time expressed some concern as to how the general OCR public would react; let this be a clear, distinct warning: this mix is sonically rather avant garde, NOT for those looking for genre-satisfaction. The ReMixer puts a lot of emphasis on texture, processing, and what ends up sounding like wavesequencing, as popularized by Korg's Wavestation synth - rapid succession of timbres, one after the other. Panning is generally meandering, percussion is EQ'd to intentionally lack oomph, and the whole composition is genuinely different on the instrumentation scene. If someone were to make music for nanomachines, this is what one might envision - tiny bites of sound, insect-like in their scope and precision, forming a larger composite whole. The end result is NOT what I'd call "easy" to listen to, but it does involve craft, arrangement, and interpretation, and the style is at once confident and boldly anti-gratification. Odd; read the panel's discussion for more information, listen with an open mind, and appreciate the details.
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