ReMix: Final Fantasy X 'Endless Skies'
The third time's the charm for newcomer PrototypeRaptor, aka Jonathan Paulsen, whose previous submissions had some arrangement issues. He started this one off intending to stick closer to the source, but still ended up deviating enough to keep things fresh. The ReMixer writes:
"I'll get one of these up yet! *shakes fist* So after being shot down on my previous two submissions for lack of actual arrangement, I decided to do an arrangement of FFX's Auron's theme by the books. Unfortunately, that's not how it turned out. I was originally going to do a straight trance cover, but then realized that that wouldn't cut it...so it's kinda morphed and twisted and now I really don't know what to call it. The main theme has a riff that uses a piano liberally, so my mix has plenty of trance piano coverage, complete with spacey solos and a weird break."
VERY heavy kick and bass anchor this one, and sometimes overpower the piano and synths. At 1'47" I feel like the timing on the piano solo is a little off, and there are other details like that which could have been improved, but overall the combination of bread-and-butter trance elements with shimmering, swirling pads, piano and glide lead is rather hypnotizing. Furthermore, around the three minute marker, Jonathan throws in some needed variation, finally opening up the filters on his gated synth background and lead as well. The impressionistic solo piano breakdown is very interesting... it sounds a bit like Claude Debussy crashing a rave mid-song, playing a few cryptic bars, then getting back up to dance. Which, hey... why the hell not? I like that the artist had the cajones to attempt a more elaborate piano bit on top of a trance foundation; even if the rhythm strays at points, it's still far more compelling than had it been strictly quantized.
Of course, the mix title "Endless Skies" might remind one of bLiNd's excellent "White Skies (Club Mix)," also from FFX and also trance, albeit a different source track. Unfortunately, we recently learned that Jordan is very sick, suffering from colitis. Please chime in on the thread to wish him & his girlfriend and family the best; he's given so much excellent music to the community over the years, it's downright scary, and I'm personally hoping he gets better ASAP.
I hate to end on a down note like that, but since this is a trance mix with a similar title, it did bring this unfortunate situation to mind. At the moment, the best we can do is wish for Jordan's speedy recovery, and remember all the awesome mixes he's done over the years. At the same time, it's great to see new faces like PrototypeRaptor persisting the trend that Jordan was so instrumental in starting, giving trance the respect and craftsmanship it deserves and making a home for the genre on OCR. In a true "best of times, worst of times" moment, I'd like to express my congratulations to Jonathan for getting his first mix posted, and thoughts & hopes to bLiNd in what must be a difficult time.
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