ReMix: Final Fantasy VII 'Adrenalyne Kyck'

• Trade-in your Games or Anime DVDs!
• OC ReMix Shirts & Merch
• Games:
  • DS | GBA | GC | PS2 | WII | XBOX | 360
  • Imports & Pre-owned
• Anime:
  • DVDs & Merchandise

Hell freezes over! Peace in the Middle East! Duke Nukem Forever is released! And yes, the judges panel's own Larry Oji can now count himself as a ReMixer. Clearly, the bar has dropped far too low, and said status has been diminished beyond all possible appeal, which will inevitably send the site into a downward spiral, as prospective ReMixers flee in disgust and disinterest.

Oh wait, this mix is also by BGC and zircon. Well, in that case...

Just kidding, of course. Actually, Larry's contribution here is in my humble opinion pretty damn cool, and well done... for what it is. You may object outright to the whole principle of spoken-word/vocoded speech in the middle of ANY electronica track, and that's fine, but I think Larry did a good job on his "assignment" and the vocoding effect helps add pitch. Which is a good thing, because if he'd actually been asked to sing, I don't think any amount of Autotune could put Humpty back together again ;) The text he's reading is actually a quote from the director of FFVII himself, Yoshinori Kitase:

"In the real world things are very different. You just need to look around you. Nobody wants to die that way. People die of disease and accident. Death comes suddenly and there is no notion of good or bad. It leaves, not a dramatic feeling but great emptiness. When you lose someone you loved very much you feel this big empty space and think, 'If I had known this was coming I would have done things differently."

- Yoshinori Kitase, Edge Magazine, May 2003, as read by Larry "Liontamer" Oji

... Pretty cool to take that quote and repurpose it like that. This track was indeed part of Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream, if it seems familiar, but it's one that's taken awhile to see the light of day, and one I was personally less familiar with until I queued it up to post. Regarding the selection of the quote, Larry writes:

"After trying a few ideas though, and hoping to tie the lyrics into the story of the game, I wasn't feeling the results. While researching the game for some inspiration, I chanced upon the quote regarding Aerith's death from game director Yoshinori Kitase and knew it fit the mood of the track. After Jimmy integrated it into the track, we both came up with the idea on our own for Jimmy to do some cool effects on the vocals to make it fit the bridge section where they were gonna be used, so it was cool to know we were on the same page. Hopefully the people enjoy 'em. So along with the vocals and hitting me up for arrangement criticisms, thanks a lot to Jimmy for having me be a part of such a great effort.

Andy mainly contributed in the form of a couple trademark zircon phat beats and mastering; this is primarily a BGC joint. Jimmy's been busy working at GC lately, catchin' some mad deals and learning the ropes; seems like that's working well. Tweek just got a studio job, too... seems like a lot of folks are movin' around a bit; congrats to both of 'em. This mix intros with a pulsing bass synth "heartbeat" and never lets up, layering beats upon beats. Think of this as the ReMix equivalent of Kellog's Raisin Bran: it's got two full scoops of beats. At least. You've also got guitarish, distorted rhythm and lead elements, afforementioned vocoded bits, and a really cool high-pitched tine-ish sound that grows towards the end and is left hanging for a bit at the mix's conclusion - good ending. The runs at 1'37" are my favorite part - very intense, almost Castlevanian motif going on, definitely digging that. Jimmy does an excellent job merging electronic with guitar/rock elements, Andy's beat-assists and mastering could only have helped, and Larry's vocoded recitation might strike some the wrong way, but to me seems appropriate, interesting, and effective. Kyckin'.

― djpretzel