ReMix:Secret of Mana "Colours of the Winter Sky" 3:31

For today we have a lovely, bright, & crisp classical/folk medley of Secret of Mana themes from Rebecca E. Tripp, collaborating with Greg Orosz, AKA Gamer of the Winds on a piece that stays relatively sparse & primarily uses bells, harp, & winds, with accompaniment, to present three of Kikuta's pieces in a colorful, wintry package. Artist comments were sparse as well, but I think Sir_NutS (again! he's on a roll...) sums things up nicely:

"I liked this quite a bit, nice performances on the woodwinds, and the adaptation works very well. There's a lot of detail here in the production, and the low overall volume allows for a wider dynamic range that gives a more natural feel to some of the instruments. The tambourines, for example felt like the performance was adapting to the overall arrangement, going from subtle to prominent and variances in-between. As far as the merging of the two sources, there was little interplay between both and more of a transition from one to the next, which makes the track feel a bit medley-ish, and I think it was a missed opportunity not to try to weave them together a bit more. Regardless of the small qualms I may have, this is very charming and pleasant, up it goes."

I think those are fair nits to pick and the deliberate transitioning coupled with the themes being siloed could have worked differently, but "charming and pleasant" is spot-on, and I too dig the dynamics and the negative space the instrumentation creates. Jivemaster adds:

"I appreciated the variance of instrument lead in each section, parts drifted in out making way for the next transition. The changes to the main melody early in the mix are subtle but add much needed originality. Things felt like they had wound up at the 2:20 mark but built up again, adding further original material. The attention to detail here IMO was quite good, natural changes in pace and velocity. Short, sweet and whimsical."

I think of this *primarily* as an arrangement of "What the Forest Taught Me," which I arranged for Resonance of the Pure Land and thus have some history with. Rebecca's interpretation is much closer to the source, maintaining the clockwork cadence & instrumentation of the bell motif... it's kinda tricky to take that in other directions, which is exactly what I was intent on doing :) At any rate, it's a source I've always loved, this ReMix provides an updated, wintry-air, rather natural take on it while incorporating other themes in a sort of montage, and Greg's performances on winds elevate things into rather captivating territory. Great stuff!