ReMix: Final Fantasy VII 'Hydrophone Breakdown'

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"ReMixing has always motivated me to expand my musical palette. My goal for Hydrophone Breakdown was to delve into the soundscapes of more experimental bands like The Flaming Lips and The Most Serene Republic. What I like about the original is its drawn-out structure, and interesting harmonic progressions. I tried to hold onto those elements while reinventing everything else.

Producing this track also gave me a great chance to demo my Nord Electro Rack, which was responsible for the piano, rhodes, and B3 sounds. The drum programming was done in Fruity, as was the synth bass (with Osc3x). The live instrumentation was care of my trusty Bach Stradivarius, the beater Yamaha guitar I used in "Anthem," and my friend's Ernie Ball Musicman bass, which shows up at the end. I also recorded the backwards guitar parts specifically for this, but can't remember what guitar or amp I used.

The bridge from the original is a clever bit of writing, so turning that into its own segment of the ReMix was easily the most satisfying part of the arrangement.

Before I finish, I'd like to say that I'm honored to have my track featured on a project this impressive (both in terms of size and quality). I'd also like to thank Jimmy (BGC), Chris (Hemophiliac), and Mattias (Another Soundscape) for their feedback, Andy (zircon) for the small (but appreciated) production touchups, and the other artists on VotL for rocking my aural cavities with awesomeness."

So sayeth Judge, ReMixer, and owner of much quality musical gear I am jealous of, JigginJonT. I'm always interested in seeing what direction Jon takes with a piece, because as a multi-instrumentalist with a wide variety of influences and capabilities, he's always got a lot of potential options. Here he couples a garage-ish drum track with a synth bass, rhodes, and a lot of neat backwards guitar textures, sonar pings, etc. You've gotta love the stylistic transition at 1'55" where Jon busts out his Bach and gets loungy wit da B3, too. Every last instrument, every last component of this arrangement has CHARACTER; that sounds like an empty, unprovable claim, but listen and see if you agree. It's hard to articulate, but Jon has a very effective way of ensuring that each individual piece lives and breathes on its own, in a musical ecosystem. Sort of like Bio-Dome, only not crappy and without Pauly Shore. Later in the mix things become downright serene, with drums dropping out and acoustic guitar serving as the rhythmic push. You can hear the Flaming Lips influence; it'd be interesting at some point to see whether Jon could either sing himself or collab with an appropriate vocalist and get some lyrics rockin', as I think his style(s) would work well with such, but his instrumentals are certainly more than satisfying as-is, this is just curiosity on my part. This is a wonderfully organic piece that grows on you with each listen; kudos to Jon for another surprising arrangement that manages to incorporate his many talents into a single cohesive whole.

― djpretzel