ReMix:Chrono Trigger "When the Walls of Time Fell..." 3:34

After debuting by arranging a classic Square game, FF7, H36T brings his musical heat to another legendary Square title. I thought the walls of time had fallen when it came to the void our previous mixpost fell through (always my fault), but NO, the walls of time are actually falling right here! There's no sophomore slump from H36T, as the lush atmosphere of Chrono Trigger's "Corridor of Time" is carried over to this piece and then some, with loads of variations and expansive writing additions attached to an already classic theme! Much like audio fidelity's grand vision in our previous featured ReMix, H36T offered up vivid imagery:

""When the walls came tumbling down, we danced until the End of Time"

Well, here it is, a song I've been working on for months now, my atmospheric take on "Corridors of Time" with some dance and pop elements added in. Two female vocals, a mandolin, and an electric guitar take most of the melodies, and the harmonies are filled with all sorts of synths. I've had some long breaks in between working on it and there have been many different iterations. This song has taken me places mentally -- some healthy, some not so. Those places, however, were worth going and the end product is as you see (or hear, LOL) with this piece. The development went from this atmospheric piece, to a sort of lonely cry to the universe, just an emotional and sometimes desperate plea for salvation from the danger that is Lavos (maybe moreover though, the danger that is human beings and temptation), and finally somewhat of a... dance. I'm not sure how this all happened, but the dramatic development certainly coincided with the dynamic swings in my head. Through all of it though, two concepts always rang true: the walls came tumbling down and time as we knew it ended.

In more concrete terms, we see this as the original motif plays in the beginning with energy but mostly untouched. Then the beginning of the end starts as something begins to surge in the bassline, eventually blasting through into the second part of the song. The walls, Zeal, begin to crumble and an expressive dance signaling the end begins. The guitar and the vocals are singing to you, the beat begins to take form, and finally... finally, one last push. One more surge of energy and... the walls come apart and the image of the last of Zeal takes hold, this desperate outpour of feelings as Zeal falls and all seems to be lost. There is something beautiful and amazing about it yet equally sad and unsure. I think, as the song ends, that really starts to settle in and that image of time beginning to end takes hold.

That's the art aspect of it anyway, haha. I think in terms of composition, I found it really hard to find a good balance between adding intensity to this piece while still keeping it atmospheric. I hope though that the balance found its way and people enjoy the final product. Maybe it was too much in terms of differing from the original. I tried to stay honest to it, but, at the same time, I wanted to bring something new and something that was me. Please enjoy my take on "Corridors of Time", "When the Walls of Time Fell...""

When H36T resubmitted this, he mentioned needing to bounce back from the panel's initial rejection:

"My first resubmission, haha. It was actually the second piece I had submitted, but the first evaluated, and I think I took the rejection a bit heavily. But that's the type of person I am. Take it hard initially, then buckle down and get to work. Unfortunately, life hit different for a while and I got away from this. But I'm back, with more bass, less clipping, some reworked drums, and a few little additions here and there. I think the blessing in disguise was that, through more time and work, I've been able to come closer to my vision than the original."

Respect to H36T for staying the course! It's easy for artists to second-guess themselves and MF the judges (and who wouldn't wanna curse us out, really -- it feels good!), but the benefit hopefully comes from realizing that the panel intends to lift artists up rather than beat 'em down, and, indeed, get folks closer to realizing their potential. As one of the Js whose opinion was successfully turned around, Emunator had several quality elements to point to:

"I gushed extensively over the strengths of this track in the original submission, and all of the elements that made me fall in love initially - the lush chromatic percussion and vocal samples, clever interplay of your original writing with the source material, and the dynamics of the arrangement overall - are still very much present. Your resubmission cleans up a lot of the most notable issues from a technical side, and we're left with a much more polished package. I agree that the drums and guitar tone still don't *quite* have the synergy with the rest of the soundscape I was hoping for, and I think that this is one of those arrangements you'll come back to years from now and hear ways that you could improve it, but I'm happy to say that the resubmission did more than enough to put it over the bar for me."

Our other mantra: don't make the perfect the enemy of the good, with a strong consensus deservedly carrying H36T to the winners' circle. :-) With a theme so core to the VGM arrangement scene as this one, it's easy to assume "yet another Zeal theme™" would fail to deliver. The build is absolutely worth it, with judge DarkSim noting "The climax of the song I think is beautiful, around the 2:25 mark", so enjoy this mystical and mysterious expansion of an iconic -- arguably THE iconic -- Yasunori Mitsuda theme!