ReMix: Terranigma 'Aquamarine'

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If you're familiar with mv's work, you probably wait for each new mix with Pavlovian anticipation, as he's got a track record of four excellent arrangements to date, with this marking his fifth. He's consistently covered different pieces from different games with a style that blends groove-based jams with silky smooth textural work and world music influences. With great results. Here Xavier sets his sites on Terranigma:

"This one is a remix of the famous "Crysta" village tune from Terranigma, the mood doesn't really deviate from the original track, it's rather laid back, peaceful. The remix benefits from new original parts, some light deviations from the original melodies and some subtle embellishments. The aim clearly was to make something relaxing - almost sleep - music, while still remaining melodic in a game-music-sort-of-way (heh)."

This is actually a bit more sentimental than what we've heard from the ReMixer in the past, but he works the tear-jerking, montage-ready, pastorale ballad gig quite well, with tasteful nature effects - the babbling brook, birds, what almost sounds like a swing or bench creaking; just a very serene, content feeling. Shire music, pre- or post-fellowship, when the Hobbitfolk are going about their leisurely, agrarian lives, with nary a dark thought or lingering doubt to trouble them. And such. Piano, harp, bass pizzicato, minimal percussion, lovely mandolin strumming, what sounds like a harmonica or bandoneon, legato strings, french horns, a subtle choral patch, xylophone, a more glockenspiel-flavored bell patch, and a sparsely but beautifully articulated acoustic guitar fill out a long laundry list of seamlessly integrated components. That's a pretty formidable array of instruments, to be sure, but they're all used at just the right moments, as augmentation or to round out a melodic passage, so rather than seeming crowded or overblown, the instrumentation instead is intimate, familiar, and very cohesive. This mix perfectly captures the feeling of being not just in any old pleasant, quaint town, but specifically being somewhere familiar - being home, or somewhere as good as home - and all the positive connotations associated with it. Gorgeous.

― djpretzel