ReMix:Final Fantasy VIII "Our Destiny" 2:29

We start the week with an absolutely entrancing, mellow, Celtic folk/new age arrangement of "The Oath" from FF8, by Forest Elves, off their album Lionheart: Volume I - band member and solo ReMixer Jordi Francis writes:

"YESSS, hello hello! New Forest Elves music! Merry and I have been creating music under the name of Forest Elves since 2011 and releasing it on our YouTube channel. We've enjoyed creating a lot of original music together, but we also took to arranging video game music as avid gamers since childhood.

So, Final Fantasy VIII is one of my favourite from the series (just behind IX) and this is one of my favourite of Nobuo Uematsu's compositions. The series is my favourite of all time, and something both myself and Merry connected with. I actually can't believe we've never properly covered anything Final Fantasy officially with Forest Elves. I once made an acapella cover of this probably 10 years ago now, and it was earbreaking. Like, legitimately dreadful. Hopefully, this cover we've worked on now counts as a redemption towards that, and also I get to debut my Irish low whistle in the first Forest Elves track! :)

We wanted to create a really ethereal sound with this one, mixing both digital arrangement with acoustic performances. I performed the main melodic performance on his Irish low whistle and Merry accompanied on her recorders. The arrangement features a lot of ambient percussion and instrumentation you might hear in the Celtic genre of music. By keeping it more traditional, we felt the emotion of the piece could shine through even more."

I love the very particular, delicate sense of timing, and the harmonies between paired woodwinds are rather divine. Merry Berry adds:

"Final Fantasy VIII! This is one of my absolute favourite Final Fantasys (Fantasies???)! I started working on this track not too long ago. I had a very specific arrangement in mind and I'm glad we could pull it off! Jordi plays his beautiful low whistle while I accompany him with my three recorders in the background. Everything else is software. This was great fun and we hope you like it!"

Seamless blending of synthetic emulations with real-world performances for an end result that is organic, transporting, and very emotive. I've heard some pretty snazzy Irish low whistle sample libraries, but hearing an intimate, nuanced performance like this gives me a greater appreciation for the instrument's depth; kudos to both performers. Larry Oji simply writes:

"Well, that's a thing of beauty, isn't it? :-)"

It is indeed; superb work from Jordi & Merry that in its relatively short duration creates a reverent, soulful atmosphere.