ReMix:Final Fantasy VIII "Infinite Collapse" 7:21

Another day, another Game Set Mash!! compo spotlight, as we circle back to Emunator once more! Chimpazilla's on a roll too: she not only mastered this ReMix, she also mastered the previous ReMix -- Hemophiliac's tear-inducing solo piano -- AND the previous previous ReMix -- Emu & team's darksynth hybrid -- all conceptualized during the GSM compo. This time around, Emu's all about channeling the techniques of a non-VGM musician, producer Jon Hopkins, as a backdrop to another strong mashup of classics from Final Fantasy VIII & IV ("Compression of Time" & "Red Wings"):

"This is my round 2 entry for DarkeSword's Game Set Mash!! competition. Once again, I had 1 week to take a source of my choosing (in this case, "Compression of Time") and create a mashup with a source chosen by the opposing team. I used this as another opportunity to do an arrangement in a style that I've always wanted to tackle; the resulting effort was a direct homage to Jon Hopkins, one of my all-time favorite producers and a huge personal inspiration in the way he approaches sound design.

I feel that anything pertaining to Jon Hopkins requires a bit of context, since his music is not the most immediately accessible. Typically, his songs are very long explorations of an extremely simple chord progression, frequently only 1 or 2 chords for the entire duration. Nearly all of the development is accomplished through sound design and subtle evolution as the arrangement progresses. He makes heavy use of distortion and glitch effects juxtaposed with beautiful melodic tones in a way that is paradoxically beautiful and visceral. The two tracks I found myself referencing most during the creation process were "Everything Connected" and "Feel First Life".

With these references in mind, I basically threw as much against the wall as I could possibly within the span of 1 week, and I'm extraordinarily proud of the results. While I mostly want to let the arrangement speak for itself (preferably enjoyed on a nice pair of headphones or a big booming subwoofer), I did want to particularly highlight the transition section from 3:27-4:16, which was a monumental task in and of itself to get to work smoothly. I automated tempo, reverb, and delay on the master chain, and even added some random automation to the master swing levels on all sequenced instruments to introduce some off-kilter polyrhythms before diving back into the final chorus. I wanted this transition to feel like being sucked into a black hole and being split apart into atoms, and then being spat out and gradually falling back together again. The whole song is written as an endless loop, starting off with a singular piano note and building up to infinity before collapsing back down to that same singular note.

Who knows if any of this will translate to a pleasant listening experience, but everything about this was very deliberate - hopefully, you find something to like here!

...or maybe I spoke too soon. In revisiting this with some fresh ears and some outside help from Chimpazilla, it turns out that my original mix/master WAS too heavy on the needless distortion and was pretty painful to listen to. So, she helped me get a fresh coat of paint on this one by walking through the project file with me track by track, and then helping with some additional mixing and a fresh master that sounds LOADS cleaner without sacrificing any of the grit."

prophetik music's summation? Superlative:

"intro is very slow with some sfx and intentional artifacting. the initial riff with the aug 4 from FF8 is in the keys after the first big hit at 0:48, with the subsequent progressions weaving in and out of that pattern. the clock sfx is a nice addition around the time motif. we get a beat at 2:02 after a neat transition that might be a little heavy on highs, but it's still ticking through until it finally hits after some great sidechain action at 2:27.

around the 2:50 mark, we finally get the first red wings cameo that i've heard. there's a drop at 3:15 or so, and we start getting some more off-time content which is a neat addition. this entire section from like 3:30 onward is really intense, there's a ton going on but it mostly stays audible throughout. there's the breakdown-rebuild section mentioned above, which is pretty neat, and then we're back into the melodic content at 4:16. this is still mostly compression of time, but there's definitely some red wings content in there. 5:04 is the last big hit (with a touch of distortion, not sure it's intentional). there's some significant falling action after this section.

5:30 or so is a significant shift - it's way slower, the beat is much more plodding intentionally, and the vibe is totally different. 6:07 is kind of the beginning of the end - it's a very clear shift away from tempo sync, with a lot more flexibility as the track finishes out. there's some very languid red wings motivic stuff in here but it's pretty stretchy.

i cannot believe you did this in one week. the breadth of complexity is nuts here. there's certainly a bit of crunch in the mastering occasionally, but the quality of content in this track is incredible. you should probably stop doing this kind of stuff for free. [...] this song is a triumph."

I'm making a note here: huge success. Indeed, Emu's all about pursuing that pro-audio life this year under the learning tree of Theophany, so it feels to me like the "preparation" part of the "Luck = Preparation + Opportunity" equation is gonna be taken care of over the course of the next several years. The sound design's gorgeous and varied, and you can easily distinguish "Feel First Life's" influence in the intro just as you'd easily pick up on the "Everything Connected" influence at 2:26. It's also interesting to hear Jon Hopkins musical DNA applied to Uematsu's themes, since the melodiousness of those sources runs counter to Hopkins' M.O., but as I've pointed out before, many of these GSM track aren't merely FF theme mashups, they're style mashups together with FF compositions. Thumpin', bumpin' brilliance by Emunator with a contemplative intro & outro shell wrapped around it, this is the stuff musical dreams are made of. :-)