ReMix: Xenogears 'Xenosphere'

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I'm in Oscars mode right now, gearing up for the Academy Awards this Sunday, honing my shouting voice so I can effectively disagree with the Academy via my television in the loudest, most futile volumes possible, so forgive me if my focus wanders or views appear occluded. We haven't seen Oceanfire since the end of 2002, which has to be up there in terms of longest broken hiatuses from ReMixing:

"Hey guys, its been a while since I have done any remix stuff but a few days ago I decided to do one. This song is another cross remix that I wrote as a tribute to Yasunori Mitsuda. The basic structure is Omen from Xenogears but you will hear elements from Presentiment (Chrono Trigger)."

Be glad he felt inspired, as this very textural mix, while perhaps emphasizing production over elaborate arrangement, is drop-dead gorgeous, with a solo female vocal that floats Maria Callas-style over harp, ambient synth textures, simple, dark percussion, and striking orchestral strings and brass. Further in, a more electronic snare is added to the percussion, to give it more forward motion and a more electronic feel, but overall the aura is dark, organic, brooding - it actually reminds me, particularly because of the singing, of some of the selections from the Donnie Darko soundtrack, primarily because of the similarly operatic vocalising and deliberate, processional pacing. zircon wrote:

"While I think some of the power of this mix comes from the pro samples used, I think that one could create a similar atmosphere using free samples. I obviously have no problems with ANY technical aspects here - absolutely beautiful usage of orchestral instruments and percussion, ethnic percussion, synths, vocals, etc.. couldn't have asked for more. I agree with Gray that while you could interpret this as being quite similar to the original, listening closely reveals that it is using new elements and a new structure to create a different style and tone."

Larry and analoq still had some reservations about the arrangement factor, and I can see their perspective - on the surface, there's more than a few similarities to the original, with instrumentation even being almost identical in places. However, like the rest of the panel, I think focusing in on what's going on under the hood yields enough augmentation or juxtaposition to effect reinterpretation. We talked about this one quite a bit, and Larry did a superlative job of voicing legitimate concerns along these lines, so I do wanna give some attention to certain potentially problematic holdovers from the source material, but at the same time, the female vocal alone adds so much additional depth, you've gotta appreciate what Oceanfire's done. It's great to see him back after so long, and I think many will be quite into this deep, swirling arrangement.

― djpretzel