ReMix:Suikoden III "Home Again" 4:21

As many of us approach family gatherings for various holidays, we hope Hometown Heroes: Town Themes Arranged reminds you of the best memories of your own hometown, wherever you consider that to be, and all the towns we've visited in various games. There's no place like home, home is where the heart is, home sweet home, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York - these things are all true, except the last one. For our final featured flood mix, Jorito (Jorrith Schaap) collabs with Earth Kid for a catchy-dreamy 90's synth/world/pop Suikoden 3 vocal that explores some of these truths, and tastefully avoids even mentioning Home Alone 3 once:

"When Hometown Heroes got its inception many moons ago, I immediately jumped in, since I am a sucker for RPGs and their music. Sadly, the album got a few false starts, and the 2 tracks I originally wrote for it (an arrangement of Ys 3 "Town of Redmont" and one of Dragon Slayer 6's "Town") got repurposed since, ending up on OCR and on another album.

However, when DaMonz pinged me in May 2018 that he would restart the album, to make an EP with a short release cycle, I was immediately intrigued again. It also meant that I had to find another track to remix, since my original tracks were already released. After some deliberation, I thought it would be great to pay homage to the Suikoden series again, an -- in my opinion -- underrated RPG series with great (and different) music.

I stumbled upon the Chisha town theme early on and felt it would be a good tune to turn into a chill-out electronic track with vocals -- quite heavily inspired by La Félix's track "Take the Night" and some zircon tracks. The catchy, repetitive main part got repurposed for the chorus, while the second violin part (which starts at 1:07 in the source track) made for the main verse parts, as well as the calmer bridge part (where it plays at half speed). Because the lead material from the source is quite busy and hard to fit in a slower track like this, I opted to essentially split it in 2 parts; the first part (the call) as a vocal, and the second part (the response) in the flutes. Combined with the song structure (which has quite some breaks and transitions in there), I think it turned out rather well.

As in basically any other track, not being a good singer, I had to find somebody to collab with. Fortunately, I've worked with Earth Kid a few times before, and she was totally up for it. She did the bulk of the lyrics and the vocals, with me making suggestions and additions in the background for both lyrics and vocals. All in all, I am really pleased with how it turned out, and I'm glad I managed to find enough time to actually make it and contribute to the album. Hope it feels like home again."

While there are more modern production components at play, this aesthetically reminds me of 80s/90s feels; I love the vocal layering & harmony, the call & answer vocal/synth interplay swims nicely, and it goes to eleven in the catchy choral hooks department. Larry Oji writes:

"Here's my personal favorite of the album for a lot of reasons. As soon as the build began with the synths and snaps, this had my attention and anticipation. Jorrith's someone you should typically expect big things from because of his propensity to collaborate and the synergy those team-ups bring to his concepts. He and Earth Kid knocked this out of the park with a very liberal, clever, and transformative pop take on "Cheerful Farm Village" that'll get you moving. I mentioned it to Earth Kid directly, but I had seen her active in the community for a while and was wondering how her music would be; her two Hometown Heroes pieces are actually my first times finally hearing her work and I'm really enjoying her tracks. Props on both! I liked the contrast of her FF6 lullaby (which will also get posted soon) with the Suikoden pop stuff afterward; it's a great display of range, and I particularly loved the chorusing of the vocals in this one, whether it was EK with Jorito or just EK during 1:38's lush breakdown section. Welcome aboard, Natalya! :-)"

Indeed, while Jorito has been doing unexpected & amazing things for some time now (mad respect), Natalya debuts with her key contributions to this mix, and also has her own touching & emotional vocal ballad on the album. She thus ended up helping define the album's experience, and most certainly for the better. Jorith's ability not only to collaborate but to finish ambitious collaborative concepts with work that resonates & does those concepts justice... is impressive, to say the least. Love this mix - gets stuck in my head and I keep it there - and a huge congrats to both artists for giving Hometown Heroes a catchy, worthy pop anthem.

And of course, best wishes and thanks to ALL artists who contributed to Hometown Heroes - from Shariq's original idea to Mirby's initial coordination to Emery's persistence & direction to Roxanne Chartrand's wonderful artwork and JBR's trailer, Larry Oji on release prep and logistics, and of course to my fellow arrangers. Happy to have played a part & proud that HH is part of OCR; I hope everyone enjoys the album!