ReMix: Final Fantasy X 'Journey's End'

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Three way collab action! Musical ménage à trois! - of a strictly platonic nature, I am assured... Daniel, Gray, and the singular Miss Jillian "pixietricks" Goldin all combine forces for a triumvirate take on FFX's "People of the North Pole" - and appreciative our Arctic friends should be, the Clauses and their dwarven slave labor all, as the three of them have, via an iterative process, come up with an icy, dramatic, enveloping arrangement. Gray actually came in after an initial version had already been cut, revising the mastering and also adding additional compositional and percussive elements on the sound foundation that Dan and Jill had crafted with their respective arranging and vocal/lyrical roles. Sephfire writes:

"I've been working on this thing since like October '04. I originally intended to submit it just an instrumental piece, but just as I was finishing up, pixietricks's name popped up on the OCR front page. So I sent her an email and here we are."

Being a fairly well-established fan of Jill's voice, lyrics, etc., I'm glad that one of the changes Gray made was to bring the vocal up a bit, as it works so very well against the floating, freezing, striking landscape which Dan crafted and Gray embellished. Regarding the lyric she penned, pixietricks writes:

"The lyrics, inspired by the love story between Tidus and Yuna, take the form of a sort of call and response. As Yuna reflects on their journey and the disappearance of her lover, a reassuring voice emerges from the fog."

The simplicity and directness work, both because they echo the soundscape and because Jill stretches the phrases out with an excellent sense of timing and release. It never ceases to amaze me how lyrics can read a certain way and seem relatively straightforward, but when sung, take on a whole new being. The mix itself intros with an ambient sweep, water drop fx, ethnic percussion groove, and piano establishing the verse melody, which in this case is more defined and conspicuous than the chorus, with the vocal gliding in and replacing it at 0'40" - lovely filtered effect and delay, which again speaks to the icy, ethereal space the piece creates. I especially like how Jill's voice rises on "I feel the voice with-in" and handles the interval there appropriately, indicative of her formal vocal training. Between the first verse and the second you have the musical equivalent of narrative exposition, as Gray and Dan take the foreground with layered drums, piano, the underlying trancey synth pattern, and general ambiance whilst ms. tricks vocalises over top, and at 2'18" the chorus shifts into more extended melodic phrasing and the response that Jill alluded to with her comment. Drums then pick up and get a bit more aggressive, lending renewed energy to the remainder of the mix, which closes out with lovely solo cello augmenting the piano as things slowly die back down into the frozen, ambient bed from which they emerged. Shna just had his own piece posted, so let's see what he had to say:

"HELL YEAH!!! I happen to know the source for this very very well and I can tell you that there is plenty of coverage of it in this mix. The original only had two melodies both of which were very short and both of which appear here and have been brilliantly adjusted to fit this HOT 6/4 groove"

So there you go - while it may not have RAD TIMBALE LICKS, it has HOT 6/4 GROOVE, which is pretty damn good as well. While not providing a comment that lent itself to amusing catch-phrase capitalization, Brandon also offered:

"Being around my old roommates and their FF love I’ve become pretty familiar with the source through osmosis. That being said, I’ve got no problems with the arrangement. At times the combo of the entrancing vocals, the modified time signature and the slick percussion overshadows the theme and allows me to forget that I’m listening to a remix, but honestly I feel it is well incorporated throughout."

From October of last year all the way to July, Sephfire's done a great job of taking a concept and running with it, holding off when he thought he could improve it significantly, and bringing on two very talented partners-in-crime for a very polished, enjoyable piece. While not every mix needs or can afford to have such a relatively lengthy gestation period, in this case it served the end result to have the respective talents of pixietricks and GrayLightning on board. The finished product is artistic, transporting, unique, powerful, and highly recommended.

― djpretzel