ReMix: Final Fantasy VII 'Son of Chaos'

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It's been awhile since our last Voices of the Lifestream ReMix, and now seems like a good time. This one's from Xaleph, who's last mix was part of the comeback flood we did back in late 2007; at the time when he put this 'Shinra' ReMix together, he hadn't had anything on OCR for quite awhile. Hence project director Andrew Aversa writes:

"One of my goals with VotL was to get old-school ReMixers on board to contribute, especially those who hadn't been posted to the site in several years. Xaleph (formally DJ Carbunk1e) was one of the people on that list, and while I was very excited when he signed on, when I finally got his finished track I was REALLY happy. I always thought the Shinra theme was one of the best selections from the FFVII soundtrack in terms of its mood and ambiance, and this ReMix just really brings out those qualities while simultaneously converting it into a new genre entirely - "downtempo psytrance", I think?

Anyway, it's awesome no matter what you call it, and if you listen to tefnek's "motor crazycycle" right after this it not only makes sense in terms of the game timeline, but they flow really well too."

Downtempo psytrance indeed; I confess that I wouldn't REALLY be able to identify psytrance with 100% certainty even if it came up and bit me in whatever parts psytrance would bite, but I can hear the trance elements, and things are certainly deliberate. It's interesting to hear some of the staple kick drum and synth bass trance patches employed in a slower, more open context. You've got spooky lo-fi sweeping pads, piano, filtered choral elements, the afforementioned trance kick along with an assortment of additional tasteful electronic percussion and, of course, synths aplenty. Actually, given the attention to detail on the drums and the rather ambient nature of the piece, it sounds not unlike modern film soundtrack work. "Soundtrack" isn't really a musical genre - it's more of a context/medium - but perhaps that'd nevertheless be the most likely mental categorization some would make. It also sounds like good "tactical espionage action" music, but perhaps I've just got MGS4 on the brain. Excellent work from Xaleph; I definitely agree with Andy that with this track he brought something both different and valuable to the overall project. Check it out, and (dead horse? beaten!) be sure to check out Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream if for some reason you haven't yet.

― djpretzel