ReMix: Final Fantasy VI 'A Nightmare Before Kefka'

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FIVE YEARS. It's been five years since the very first ReMix was posted here on OCR. In ways, that seems amazingly short, and in other ways, unbelievably long. I'll save the larger retrospective pontification for the last of three mixes being posted tonight, all of which - by sheer coincidence - are from FF6. Surprisingly enough, there were only four ReMixes from this most popular of mix candidates in 2004, and in one fell swoop, 2005 will catch up to that figure. Fear not, intrepid listener, as I think you'll find each of these mixes brings something new to the admittedly crowded FF6 table, and you may or may not be assuaged to hear that none of them cover Terra :) First off is zircon's coverage of Kefka, with a little Wild West thrown in for good measure. Quoth the mixer:

"This is a remix of the Kefka theme from Final Fantasy 6 (track 1.08 "Kefka.spc" in the FF6 RSN on OCR). It also incorporates a little bit of material from track 1.17 "Wild West", or the Veldt theme. I also feel it's worth noting that the excellent bell melody from 1:12 to 1:22 is actually by Tyler Heath (Unknown), with his permission...To create the song, I used FLStudio 5 (for putting it together), Garritan Personal Orchestra (for most instruments), Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Gold (for a few other instruments), free ethnic samples from Samplefusion (for percussion), and some assorted soundfonts.

A quick background of how this mix came to be: I love Danny Elfman's musical style, and I think it has shown up in some of my other works. It's dramatic and often dark, but at the same time quirky and mischevous. I thought that would fit the character and theme of Kefka well, so I decided to combine the two with my own style. I know this isn't a long mix, especially for this genre, and I'll be the first to admit I'm really new to orchestral arrangement, but I'm very pleased with the final result and I think it's enjoyable. Hopefully, you will too."

Things begin suspensefully with a delicate bell melody and offbeat pizzicato, but swell quickly at 0'20" with ensemble strings and percussion. I'll go out on a limb and proclaim that any time you got bassoon action going in a break, it's a good thing, and Andrew throws some of that bad boy down, with clarinet and percolating latin percussion joining the fray. There's some choral work as well, then things bust into dramatic unison action on the Veldt theme at 1'23" before eventually getting back to Kefka and building towards a well-implemented gotcha ending that gets you even when you've looped the piece half a dozen times and know exactly what to expect. Things are layered, with a variety of winds, strings, and especially ethnic percussive influences. Israfel pointed out perhaps the one flaw, which is that the arrangement might have too much variety for its own good, and could have been longer to fully explore the dearth of musical ideas, tempos, and styles that were clearly circulating through zirc's mind as he mixed. When the numero uno beef with a mix is too much variety, however, as opposed to not enough, that's a pretty good sign. Gray says:

"However, what is here is done very very well. The arrangement is great, the instrumentation though linear and expected is still pulled off very well. The ethnic percussion added a nice flavor to the mix too. I particularly enjoyed the tempo shifts in the mix."

For this to be one of zircon's initial stabs at orchestral arrangement is impressive in and of itself, but the mix would stand on its own two feet without that context, and packs quite a musical wallop. Fans of Kefka, FF6, zircon, and ethno-classical will dig it, and hopefully that's almost every last one of you.

― djpretzel