ReMix: Final Fantasy VII 'Serenity'

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The Return of Mustin!! Mustin's last solo mix was posted in April of 2003, more than four years ago, but he's back as part of Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream, and his track is killah smooth. He of no surname writes:

"I really put this track together at the very last minute. I mean less than a week away from the deadline. I remember that I had Tim Yarbrough (Guitar player from The OneUps) the nite before New Year's Eve to lay down the guitar tracks. I stayed up really late editing them and in the morning, I had Lisa Leamons and Jennifer Graham over to lay down the vocals. I would have had plenty of time to put it all together, but for whatever reason, one of my clients was getting married on New Year's Eve and she asked that I be there. So I took Lisa to the wedding, dropped her off, and then ran into my house where a HUGE New Year's Eve party was happening and finished editing this track just in time for the midnight deadline. Somehow I managed to pull it together 'cause everyone seemed to like it. For this project, I was able to go back, finish all of my edits and have Dale North do a quick remix and mastering job for me.

I love this track. It has a special place in my heart. It's dedicated to Lisa and I hope that everyone enjoys it."

So, to give Mustin's comments a little context, Andy actually held a competition for one track to be put on the album later in its development, and Mustin won said contest. It should be easy to see why: this arrangement has a fresh sound that's very open-ended. The wordless vocals add a lot, the gated effects add a lot, and the hip-hop elements combined with jazz combined with electronica all form this chimera that can't easily be pegged down - it's in the "just great music" genre, which is the one I've always preferred. The bassline is huge - definitely gonna get your sub working overtime - and the piano, bells, lovely EP progression, guitar, and slick, jazzy drums all form part of a larger picture. This piece manages to be haunting and funky at the same time, which is a difficult balance to strike. The ending's classy and unresolved, there are some progression modulations that challenge listeners to adapt pretty quickly (good thing, at least in this case), and in general this avoids all of the pitfalls a groove-oriented approach can encounter, while enjoying all of the strengths. Making it... awesome. Mustin and The OneUps in general have been doing great lately, having recently played at PAX alongside The Minibosses and Neskimos. Hopefully, though, he'll have time to do a solo mix more than once every four years, as this triumphant return simply begs for a follow-up. Until that day, however, enjoy Mustin's contribution to FF7:VotL, the very slick and sharing-the-same-name-as-a-kickass-joss-whedon-feature-film "Serenity".

― djpretzel