ReMix:Touhou Chireiden: Subterranean Animism "Lullaby of Flame" 2:55

By DDRKirby(ISQ)

Arranging the music of one song...

"Lullaby of Deserted Hell"

Primary Game: Touhou Chireiden: Subterranean Animism (Team Shanghai Alice , 2008, WIN), music by Junya Ota

Posted 2013-02-08, evaluated by the judges panel


Gotta love those Touhou game titles... I for one feel that most animism SHOULD be subterranean. Newcomer DDRKirby(ISQ) (Timothy Wong) makes his OCR debut with this mellow, chippish electronica waltz that plays it pretty close to the original but ultimately had enough personalization to win the judges over. The ReMixer writes:

"So, it's been =over 7 YEARS= since I last tried to submit to OC ReMix. Needless to say, I've gotten much better since then. Of course, your standards are also higher now, so it's an interesting sort of arms race. ;)

This one has a bit of an interesting story behind it. I've gotten pretty involved in the social dance scene recently, and waltz has always been my favorite dance (even though much of my music is more of the UNTS UNTS variety), so I had the idea of composing some sort of waltz in my own style...around the same time, I ran into one of those "wait, what is this tune I'm humming from?" moments and traced it back to Touhou 11's stage 5 theme. The two ideas eventually clicked together, and this mix was born.

I had actual dancing in mind when I was producing this one, hence the just-under-3-minutes track length. One other example is the slowdown and boom at the finale, which is perfect for a spin spin spin spin->dramatic dip sort of move. I considered two other alternatives: one was a dramatic end without the slowdown, but that might catch dancers off guard if they didn't know that the song was ending. The other was a more gentle fadeout, as in the original track, but that would lead to a sort of awkward "okay are we still supposed to be dancing or not" moment."

Clearly some diehard Touhou fans need to tie the knot and dance to this at their wedding; that ending ritardando is a nice touch and I love that Timothy put this together with dancing logistics in mind, informing his decisions on tempo, conclusion, etc. Larry writes:

"The different mood, original countermelodies during the more coverish melody section, coupled with the substantial interpretation from :51-2:05 all set this apart from the original nicely as far as the arrangement goes. Everything was mixed/balanced solidly, so I was diggin' this. I wasn't put off at all by the 1:29-2:06 section from, as that was all based on the source's acoustic guitar intro, and did a good job of giving that part a new style."

halc adds:

"good stuff here, really smooth, pristine soundscape and a catchy arrangement. great drum programming too. I like it."

A little more interpretation & greater dynamic contrast wouldn't have hurt, but overall this is a sweet debut from DDRKirby(ISQ) that takes a thoughtful chip approach to arranging the source and ends up with a lovely & (bonus!) danceable waltz.

djpretzel

Discussion

Latest 9 comments/reviews; view the complete thread or post your own.
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mutecebu
on 2015-01-28 09:49:26

Man, this is really good! I randomly found this in my downloads folder - I have no idea how I found this track or why I decided to download it, but I'm glad I did. Very piratey. The levels and quality of the voices are spot-on, professional quality 5/5. The percussion really meshes well, in what's otherwise entirely chiptuny-synth, filling it out without being conspicuous.

Definitely my dark-horse favorite track in the past 6 months.

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Crulex
on 2013-04-17 14:41:13

One thing I can say about Touhou, even if I never had a chance to really play any of them, is that they have music that lend themselves well to ReMixing. DDRKirby here gives a great example of that with this. Probably the most upbeat, hard-hitting waltz I've ever heard. Also now one of my favorite and it does work if you focus on the beats for the dance. Great melody and arrangement, DDRKirby!

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urdailywater
on 2013-03-02 21:38:46

Keep the Touhou coming OCR! I'm telling you, there has got to be an OCR Touhou album one day. These games have so many doujin arranges because the source material is just too good. Someone get on that!

This is probably my favorite Touhou mix on the site right above Prototype's version. The downward synth slides are ear candy : D and the lead synth writing in general is very sexy even though this is a pretty conservative arrangement. Good countermelody writing, too.

Instrumentation feels good - you really step up the source with your sound choices (which to be honest, is not too hard to do with some Touhou music..), but the instruments gel together very well.

Not much fault to find with this mix. It's the perfect length, too. I could find myself listening to this on repeat for a long time.

Good job with this mix! Listen to this even if you aren't really a Touhou fan. It's good.

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timaeus222
on 2013-02-20 15:20:54

For some reason this could probably have been written in a Scarborough-Fair-like style, IMO. Interesting style there, awesome harmonies.

EDIT: lol, looks like a lot of other people think that about the melody too, after checking out some random youtube video comments.

Hilarious how it happened to be used in an actual waltz situation. xD

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Melody of Light
on 2013-02-10 12:55:19

I'm familiar with the Touhou franchise, but have never played any of the games. I usually avoid remixes to games that I haven't played, but figured that I'd try this mix out anyway. The description made it sound too interesting not to.

I'm glad I did. I can't compare it to the original, since I've never heard it, but the melody is fantastic. The electronic tones are a pleasure (I grew up with the NES and original Gameboy, so anything even remotely 8-bit is pure nostalgia). I particularly like the pitch shift that ends the song.

All around, beautifully done.

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TillyFun
on 2013-02-09 16:09:32

oh wow, this is really something! :D I love waltzes and the waltz style adds a certain playfulness here. Or not, if that wasn't what was intended. :) Either way I love this mix. ^_^ So fun and quirky! :3

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metaphist
on 2013-02-08 15:46:14

I've been catching a lot of Touhou stuff on rainwave.cc, so this was a pleasant surprise. I can't pretend I know any of the songs by heart, but this mix is very nice nonetheless. Touhou turned waltz with DDR-esque synths, sounds pretty good to me :)

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Watarimono
on 2013-02-08 12:52:38

When I saw that Subterranean Animism had been added to the games list, I was absolutely psyched. I thought that, surely, a Mix of Solar Sect of Mystic Wisdom ~ Nuclear Fusion was on the way. For the absence of that, I was somewhat disappointed. But I can't really complain, as far as the mix goes. It's really pretty. The chippy format is really reminiscent of the PC-98 era Touhou games, and it's equally as relaxing as it is nostalgic.

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djpretzel
on 2013-02-08 12:29:38

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

Sources Arranged (1 Song)


Primary Game:
Touhou Chireiden: Subterranean Animism (Team Shanghai Alice , 2008, WIN)
Music by Junya Ota
Songs:
"Lullaby of Deserted Hell"

Tags (6)


Genre:
Waltz
Mood:
Mellow
Instrumentation:
Chiptune,Electronic,Synth
Additional:
Time > Tempo: Slow

File Information


Name:
Touhou_Chireiden_Subterranean_Animism_Lullaby_of_Flame_OC_ReMix.mp3
Size:
4,761,741 bytes
MD5:
0a7aaac47fb96e1f2fc8482a01638bc2
Bitrate:
213Kbps
Duration:
2:55

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