ReMix: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening 'The Sad Fish'

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First off, Mr. Nazgul has joined our team of diligent forum moderators, Mr. Lightning recently ended up victorious in a chess tourny on our forums - which makes me feel good because I've actually beaten him once or twice... out of twenty games ;) - and for the programmers amongst you, Eclipse 3.1 finally went final (it's what I now use for any OC ReMix coding in PHP). It's also worth mentioning that I've finally decided to set up my own personal site at www.djpretzel.com, complete with (gasp) blog, some original tunes, etc. - while only tangentially related to OCR, and still a work in progress, some of you might find it amusing. Last but not least, if you're not familiar with Audioscrobbler, you might be interested - it's a personal service that keeps track of what you listen to (you can control this as you see fit) and builds a profile around that, and there's an OC ReMix Audioscrobbler group already set up.

Moving on, Nixdorux sends us some orchestral coverage from Link's portable outings, and yes, there's a bassoon solo, so baby jesus is happy. There's also a good deal of exploration, a variety of instruments, and while the tone is rather somber for the first two and a half minutes, things take an unexpected turn and mutate from melodramatic orchestral to... orchestral jazz? Sure, why not. For some reason I can't put my finger on specifically, this seemed a little Bernsteinish, at least in its resolution/juxtaposition. Could be nothing. At any rate, this certainly isn't filmtastic, bombastic orchestral of the Williamsian variety - it's more the subtle, Silvestri school if you had to pin it to the film world at all. There's a good deal of solo work, percussion is used sparingly, dynamics vary but are overall sedate, etc. Israfel described the arrangement as a bit schizo, which sounds right - the transition is certainly dramatic, going from minor to major key and then tossing in a genre infusion as well. Waleed says:

"the move into a jazz interpretation was key. reminds me a lot of al dimeola's work on World Sinfonia. very nice i approve.

all in all, a good piece and while it goes a lot into french impressionist tones through stretches of it (sounds a bit schiz like michael said), i still think it goes to show a solid understanding of musicality"

I agree in particular with the notion of musicality - it's a bit vague, but for me at least it means that Nicolas has a great foundation and knowledge of how to piece something together and have it work without relying on too many vices or easy outs, and also has a consistently expressive nature to his material. Whether the piece works for you is going to rely to some extent on whether you're feeling the transition. To me, it's a novel concept, risky, and while another path may ultimately have led to a more cohesive overall arrangement, the tradeoff is a unique and memorable blending. It certainly helps that the source material is gorgeous + some of Kondo's best stuff, but the ReMixer doesn't rest on that, and in fact almost deliberately avoids too much gratuitous coverage of the "money" bits. Good stuff from Ferranti, who's got his own sound and style going, which seem to proceed and evolve on their own vector, paying minimal dues to convention and taking some interesting - and musical - risks.

― djpretzel