ReMix:Final Fantasy VII "Mako Eyes" 4:39

What's this? A non-Voices FF7 mix by two peeps that were all over that album? Mattias explains the shenanigans at length:

"Cain and I started this during the final breath of VotL and, because of various reasons, couldn't finish it in time. Then one day we realized that... well, what we had kicked major ass. So we took some time with it, Cain recorded his very awesome guitars and I touched up the rest and here we are!

I tried to capture the feeling you get from the story around Lifestream. Something constantly flowing that's really the essence of all organic life. This made me work a lot with the pads to make a solid but constantly evolving soundscape to base the song upon. I used LFO-controlled filters with great success and I think I managed to create something that's interesting to listen to. I'm actually surprised how well this worked with the more "traditional" instruments like the guitar, the strings and the mellotron flute. Cain was very easy to work with, he's an amazing musician and a solid producer. I'm really happy we did this, even though it didn't make VotL, because I really enjoyed this and I hope others do too."

AnSo was actually givin' me the hard press to post this mix a bit sooner, since the recent gap between this mix and his last is apparently the first time since he had a mix on the site that one of his tracks wasn't on the homepage. Which is a bit scary, but not exactly surprising given the persistent plethora of plucky and powerful pastiche he's provided over the last year or so. Alas, there was a window where he briefly disappeared, but it happens to the best of us, and the important thing is that he - and Cain - have reappeared with a track that definitely would have fit right in on VotL. Fishy offers:

"The nutters who "came out of nowhere" unite for great justice. Basically, if I wasn't such a lazy ass this probably would've been on votl. We decided we should remix 'Lifestream' as it was one of the cooler undone tracks, and AnSo put all this effort into this massive beautiful morphing ball of sound, and then I put all this effort into waiting for my sound card to arrive as my old one broke.

So anyway, the intro stuff was acheived using a combination of my whammy bar, a slide and my volume pedal. AnSo told me to solo at the end but I really didn't want to ruin an understated arrangement with pointless wank, so I held back. Its great fun to hear all the weird stuff that crazy swede comes up with. I sorta kinda did the final master, for some reason... I had to use a compressor and shit... Whats up with that. Also I checked with zircon that he didn't mind me submitting, as anso already submitted recently. He said it was cool if I did it. Peace."

"Pointless Wank" would make a great band name, all the more ironic if said band actually DID feature self-indulgent soloing, and nothing but. Actually, the bending lead guitar in the intro *does* feel a little Ravi Shankar, all the moreso given the 'Strawberry Fields' connection that the Mellotron flutes evoke. With the exception of the filtered, undulating bed of futuristic synth pad, which puts us a little outside the period, this does have some Beatlesque qualities to it, which is cool by me. Aversa, aka Mr. Voices, writes:

"Bah!! This should have been on VotL. I heard the WIP and liked it, but the deadline was approaching so quickly, this mix wasn't finished in time. Smooth, atmospheric synths and beats, with appropriate ballad-style guitar cutting through. Arrangement was great, which of course is no surprise, given the mixers involved. The ending in particular is just really awesome."

Jimmy expresses the unbridled ethnocentrism and dismissive attitude that forms the pillarstone of American foreign policy, tongue firmly in cheek:

"Bah, what do Europeans know about music anyway? Aren't they all too busy drinking tea and riding their fancy trains to take time to really do anything else? Pfffffftttttt........."

Of course, if you read the decision thread, he liked it. This seems like a meditative, contemplative arrangement to me, one that you could repeat your mantra to while you Tai Chi, Yoga, Wii Fit, or simply imbibe substance. Nice, relaxing... Zen, even. Appropriate, given the source material & context; (more) excellent stuff from Cain and Mattias.