Final Fantasy VIII: SeeDs of Pandora (original) (raw)

Final Fantasy VIII: SeeDs of Pandora is the 78th FREE community arrangement album from OverClocked ReMix. In the theme of a world ravaged by war and strife, the goal of SeeD is to bring peace to the world, unite its people and defeat the sorceress. To that end, this album arranges music from this classic, dark-horse entry in the Final Fantasy series in a wide array of cultural elements, unique styles and sheer passion for Nobuo Uematsu's work. It features 80 tracks arranged by 97 artists and was released on May, 8th, 2023.

Director Comments

We were given the unique opportunity to direct a defunct FFVIII OC Remix album project by DJPretzel and Liontamer themselves! It was attempted once, but for reasons, it fell through. Despite this, we were given the chance to revive this album - it being the last Final Fantasy of the Playstation era not to have an OC ReMix album. Darkflamewolf sketched out a compelling vision and tracklist suggestion for each disc while Jorito went recruiting - with an end goal of about a year to complete the entire project. We managed to interest a lot of people from the VGM community, with a good mix of OC ReMix veterans, people from other communities and newcomers.

Coming back to the series after being gone from it for so long was like coming home and Final Fantasy VIII seemed to be this perfect welcoming party of a game for everyone. People had a fondness and love for its characters, its world and its music. The intent with this album was to embrace the remix aspect of OC ReMix fully and to interpret the original melodies in ways you might not have heard before. Our goal is to provide something new and transformative with these songs. Kudos to all the talented people who helped make this album a reality! It was a joy working on this and seeing it come together.

Now the album has been tailored to be a thematic experience from disc 1 all the way through disc 4 (and beyond to the surprise disc 5), starting off slow just like Final Fantasy VIII does, before ramping up to action set pieces, then calming down to some wild and diverse gameplay experiences and finally ending strong. However, you can listen to the album in any order for any mood you're feeling. Whatever works for you. Ultimately, we hope you enjoy this album and its fresh new take on the music of Final Fantasy VIII and may it always rekindle your fond memories of your time playing it. From the SeeDs of Pandora team to you: Happy listening!

- Darkflamewolf and Jorrith "Jorito" Schaap

Download

Downloading the album using BitTorrent is the best option - it helps us save bandwidth and gives you the option of downloading MP3, lossless FLAC files, or both by selecting which files to grab in your BitTorrent client.

Music

• Balambdisc1
• Galbadiadisc2
• Trabiadisc3
• Lunatic Pandoradisc4
• Ragnarokdisc5

01 - The Jellyfish

• ReMixed by: djpretzel
• Source: Fisherman's Horizon

• djpretzel: Consider the jellyfish. In Spanish, French, Russian, and other languages: "medusa." Not only is it "not actually a fish," which you may have heard someone insightfully inform, it's ridiculously far off the mark. For example, fish have eyes, and jellyfish don't... but even if they DID, they'd be useless, because they also don't have brains. For reference, even microscopic tardigrades have brains; jellyfish are like… micro life on a macro scale. And they've been around FOREVER - just like horseshoe crabs, they seem to have stumbled on an evolutionary strategy that has some serious long-term viability: stay out of the way, and don't be delicious. Of course, they don't always stay out of the way… but most stings are from dead jellyfish bits, not living creatures. Dead jellyfish tentacles can still sting you years, even decades later. Peeing the pain of such stings away is a myth, and basically does nothing, but I suppose it may have a psychosomatic effect, depending on how your brain processes the novelty of urination upon your person. Since I'm dropping so many jellyfish truths, here, I'd like to take a second to point out that the much-feared Portuguese man o' war is not actually a jellyfish at all, but a siphonophore, and don't let any ne'er-do-wells tell you otherwise. Siphonophores are even weirder than plain old jellyfish, and are "colonial organisms," kinda like the Borg or the British Empire. Long story short, our homo sapiens timeline to date is a drop in the bucket compared to how long these strange, strange creatures have been around, so if you DO get stung, don't complain about it, just brag that you were "touched by an ancient," which doesn't sound weird at all.
  This is a narrative lo-fi folk trap that transitions into lo-fi synthwave, and I do mean that. Many thanks to Darkflamewolf & Jorito for directing this FF8 album and giving me a long leash & a lot of time, and of course to all other contributing artists. This is a shorter mix, yes, but it doesn't really repeat itself, and it manages to include all the different arrangement ideas I had for this source in one package: taikos, 808s, erhu, psychedelic transition FX, a harmonic wormhole, Output Portal & Thermal, electric guitar, and more. Whether you find this coherent or not hinges on whether you're coming with me on a bit of a journey. Hopefully it's conveyed musically to an abstract extent, without any liner notes whatsoever, but I can tell you the story I wrote in my head for it, and it's a sad story, and maybe you will like it. There are lyrics and everything - this was originally going to be a vocal track, but that wasn't right, or I couldn't pull it off in time, or both. I still really dig the idea of writing & releasing lyrics to go with instrumentals, like I did with my Golden Sun mix - they help during production, but they're also fun to think about or even sing internally when listening, at least for me.
  So there's this fisherman, see. This was a long time ago, pre-industrial, etc. He left his family inland and traveled for weeks to go fish at the shore for the summer, on a small island off the coast known both for its abundance of fish… and for its danger. Something like that. All the fishermen that fish this spot are loners but still have kind of a shared culture, and there's a song they all sing:

All I want is a place in the sea
Far away from geography
To kill my time, alone, waiting for the tide to
Find my body, and carry me home
It's a little fatalistic, but they really like it. This mix was almost going to be titled "A Place in the Sea," even. So one night, he's bored or lonely and decides to go for a swim. He jumps in the water, and he's swimming along, and he's humming this very song to himself. That's a physically-modeled erhu from Reason's "Friktion" rack instrument at 0'25"; much better than sampled options I've heard in that you can really get some modulation going and get a phrase that sounds alive. I'm happy with it. So at 0'47" he notices something odd: a couple lights, about 25-30 feet away, that appear to be under the water. So what the hell, right? He swims out a bit to investigate.
As he gets closer, 5-10 feet away, he can see underwater that the lights are... moving! He keeps coming up for breaths & then going back under to study these bizarre, undulating creatures that are somehow giving off light. As he does, he starts noticing a (much) larger light coming up from below. Then, even from above the water while taking a breath, he can see the larger light becoming brighter, and as soon as he goes back down, he can see an entire bloom of bioluminescent jellyfish. He's seen jellyfish before, sure, but never ones that glowed, and he simply doesn't know what the heck he's looking at, and is overwhelmed. Remember, it's a long time ago and stuff, and none of the other fishermen have seen this species before, either. And they don't know that jellyfish don't have brains, or what a brain even is. Yeah, that long ago.
So this is where things take a dark turn - it's a sad story, not a nature documentary - and essentially this guy gets tangled up in these things, surrounded by them, and suffers enough stings that his body goes into shock and he can't swim or even stay afloat. How likely is this to have actually happened to someone, in similar circumstances, at some point in history? No idea, probably not very, keep going. He's able to struggle a little, but ultimately to him it seems these creatures are malicious, and want him dead, and are going to get their way. He gasps for air, but only water fills his lungs, and panic enters his mind. He imagines their collective song, sung to him - hair band electric guitar enters in a wicked, minor key take on the rest of the melodic phrase at 1'40":

We'll send you down to rot
At the bottom of the sea
You're meat
In his mind, these things are not very nice, and he curses them. He realizes he is going to die. He's sunk beneath the bloom and can only see the light from above now. He is far enough gone to perceive it more like a halo or celestial body, and in his final moments he thinks back to his family, and his children who will grow up without him, and he makes a sort of impossible peace with that. We are now firmly in Melodic Melodrama Mode:

Never got to tell you, all that I had to say
Never had the chance to teach you,
Always planned for other days
I know that love will guide you, but if there could be a way
My last words could somehow reach you
It's the only thing I'd pray:
I love you
And that's that.

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02 - Aroma of Sugary Warmth

• ReMixed by: Clément Panchout feat. Facemelting Solos, GameroftheWinds & SableProvidence
• Source: Balamb Garden

• Clément Panchout: Aromas of Sugary Warmth is a tribute to the sounds of the Middle East, mixed with electronic sounds, more and more present in a second movement to create an ambient soundscape that -I hope- will make you travel.
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03 - Moonlit Night on a Calm Lake

• ReMixed by: Chris Kohler feat. Chromatic Apparatus & GuitarSVD
• Source: Waltz for the Moon

• Chris Kohler: Originally, Waltz for the Moon is a very fun and goofy song. But nevertheless, I set out to make this fast Viennese-style Waltz into a calm tune which features lots of Asian instruments. Here I naively thought: Well, you can make any melody sound calm and sad, right? Turns out it was not as easy as I imagined it to be, and I struggled quite a bit throughout the arrangement process :)
  Still, I'm very happy with the result and thanks to my awesome collaborators we have super emotional and atmospheric Erhu & Cello lines at the core of this track.
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04 - Where is My Fault?

• ReMixed by: Bluelighter feat. Anna Hanabi, Ian Martyn, SableProvidence, GuitarSVD, dpMusicMan & Khoo Sze Ning
• Source: Tell Me

• Bluelighter: This arrangement is based on "Tell Me", a theme based on the character Quistis in the game. In the scene, she realized her difficulty to communicate with Squall, her taciturn student. Hence the title, "Where is my Fault?"
  Some instrument players offered to collaborate for this album project. For me, it was a great opportunity to work in a different style, to use some acoustic instruments that I'm not used to. After discussion with Jorito and DFW, I oriented my arrangement to an Asian style. I first wanted to use harp. But, they convinced me to replace it by guzheng to give a more Asian feel.
  I'd to enrich my knowledge on these different instruments. Notably, some Asian instruments whose I didn't know the sonority or the playing. I was a little worried about guzheng, written firstly for harp, and whose playing is different. I was not sure of its possibilities; but Khoo played it very well!
  SableProvidence guided me about flute and their tessitura. He explained to me that the 2nd voice at the ending was too low for a standard flute, hence the bass dizi. He also helped me to find some contacts, so I could collaborate with dpMusicMan for percussion and Khoo for guzheng.
  I asked my sister to sing on this piece. She has not yet collaborated on an album project and I knew her voice would well match with what I wanted for this arrangement.
  I'm grateful to all instrument players who have collaborated with me. It was a great experience to work with all them! I thank also Jorito and DFW for their advice, on the arrangement and on the mixing.
  About the inspiration, I built this arrangement bit by bit. At the beginning, I only wanted an acoustic piece with a female voice with some long notes, representing the character Quistis. I added a pad and a high synth to give more consistency.
  At the third part, I felt it should be the culminant point for this mix. I added drum, bass… To reinforce the rhythm, I wanted an instrument like guitar, but lighter. Ian, who was also part of the album project, played mandolin as well as bass; he suggested it would be a good option. After this part, I was blocked a moment to continue. I decided in the fourth section to keep a marked rhythm and to start a new harmony. I realized this harmony could be well married with the main melody. It was also a good way to give more importance to the vocals. The dizi takes over the vocal at part five and plays a new melody based on the same harmony. I concluded this arrangement with a part in the same mood as the beginning.
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05 - Garden's Destiny

• ReMixed by: Deedubs
• Source: The Oath

• Deedubs: When it came to finding a style of music that would fit a calm, yet cultural feel, I decided to go with bossa nova, a style I'm at least somewhat familiar with. With my flugelhorn in hand once again, my goal with this particular endeavor was to express a more somber tone as opposed to just solely a "relaxing" vibe that bossa nova tends to get lumped into. It seemed fitting considering the original source tune, "The Oath", occurs during a more serious moment in the game, in the midst of a fierce battle between the Gardens of Balamb and Galbadia. The title of "Garden's Destiny" was taken from Squall's speech during that moment.
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06 - I Belong

• ReMixed by: Cyril the Wolf feat. Jordi Storm
• Source: Where I Belong

• Cyril the Wolf: I like to make lyrical summations of the plots of games when I have the idea to do so. Realistically it's imposing an emotional context upon a character that may be lost in a larger plot and this was my attempt at it. Squall never wanted to play the leader but was thrust into the role. In the scene where this song plays the whole cast is reminiscing about memories that they had lost and then it really throws a wrench into the whole thought process behind the character motivation.
  Essentially - the plot answers the questions posed by the lyrics and I feel like the title wraps it up nicely.
  Doing things with just a few instruments and vocals is hard which is why I'm super pleased that Jordi stepped up to give me some of his vocal talents, anyone who knows my work knows I can sing myself but his lilt really fit the vibe way better than my own approach so I was happy to have him, and the tin whistle and irish flute really gave it the folk-ish vibe I was looking for.
  Guitar was recorded with a double mic technique which was pretty tough, but overall getting the chords right to get pretty close to the original piano driven piece was worth it.
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07 - Roses, Wine and Gentle Smiles

• ReMixed by: Carlos Piano feat. Eder Grangeiro & Marcel Balciunas
• Source: Roses and Wine

• Carlos Piano: The original track is very charming with its curious instrumentation and heartfelt melody. That's Nobuo for you!
  It was tricky to make an interesting arrangement - if I leaned too much into the source material, it would get boring; on the other hand, getting too inventive risked deviating from the original vision. I tried to solve that by immersing the song with a new lighthearted swing feel, combining real instruments with synth, and adding dense short improvisations.
  I would like to imagine Laguna and Julia dancing slowly to this rendition, exchanging sweet glances all throughout.
  Props to the producers for great ideas and such dedicated help!
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08 - Gaofar

• ReMixed by: Ian Martyn
• Source: Breezy

• Ian Martyn: Breezy has always been one of my favorite tracks from the Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack, so I decided to cover it acoustically like I have often done before. I'm actually surprised that it worked as well as it did as a jig, and I'm glad that I got to show off the power of the original melody on the Irish bouzouki in the middle. I played Irish bouzouki, DADGAD guitar, Irish whistle, and concertina.
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09 - The Annals of Truth

• ReMixed by: RebeccaETripp feat. GameroftheWinds & Ian Martyn
• Source: Junction

• RebeccaETripp: In this track, I wanted to invoke the themes of mystery, memory, and layers of consciousness. It's a theme surrounding the use of sorcery and summons, by which the party receives physical and spiritual augmentation, but with an unfortunate side effect of partial amnesia. It's also a theme for shared consciousness, between past and present, and from person to person. Naturally, I wanted to convey a creepy, yet strangely alluring sense of liminal consciousness!
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10 - Find Your Way to the East

• ReMixed by: Kyle Mesce (Sorven) feat. GuitarSVD, Chromatic Apparatus, optimizasean, Daphne F., SableProvidence, William Sandberg & Travis Kindred
• Source: Find Your Way

• Kyle Mesce (Sorven): Many beloved video games in the world are created in Japan, yet, the traditional musicality is often lost in several of these games due to stylistic choices or creative limitations. "Find Your Way to the East" is an appreciation of this convention towards Japanese music (with nods to Chinese instrumentation). It also utilizes western strings, as if someone from the United States has arrived in Japan and is taking in all the sights it has to offer. From West to East, I hope you enjoy the journey.
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11 - Take My Squall Away

• ReMixed by: Hemophiliac
• Source: Love Grows

• Hemophiliac: It's all Jorito's fault.
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12 - Tears in Rain

• ReMixed by: Zack Parrish
• Source: Silence and Motion

• Zack Parrish: In a bid to try and get one of my favorite tracks on the album I decided with the 2 hours I had on the final day for final submission to crank out one more track. With the futuristic city vibe in mind I opted for the iconic style of Vangelis, particularly his theme for the scene "Tears in Rain" from Blade Runner. That's basically it. Named the track after that theme in honor of the man himself who departed earlier this year (2022 at the time of writing). He'll live on through his music for ages, I'm sure.
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13 - The Infested Arena

• ReMixed by: Bluelighter
• Source: Fear, Unrest

• Bluelighter: Here is a piano arrangement of "Fear" and "Unrest". These tracks marry well together IMO, by their melody or by their sinister atmosphere. This arrangement sounds a little jazzy with disturbing dissonances. Notably at the 2nd play of Fear at 1:53 where I've taken some liberties on harmony. Soft parts (notably intro and outro) also contribute to the worrying atmosphere that I wanted in the arrangement. Enjoy!
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14 - Longing for the Horizon

• ReMixed by: Zack Parrish feat. Ian Martyn, KestrelGirl & E. Jesús Chic Acevedo
• Source: Blue Fields

• Zack Parrish: Track includes performances by Ian Martyn, KestrelGirl and Jesús Chic Acevedo. This is my first experience working with Ian and KestrelGirl, and the second time I've worked with Jesús. Those familiar with my arrangements might recall his name from playing the irish whistle on my arrangement of Terra's theme from FFVI. The man's still got it... though this time he contributed the irish flute instead, with Ian playing irish whistle & bouzouki, and KestrelGirl laying it down on violin.
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15 - Moments

• ReMixed by: Jorito feat. JoyDreamer & Chris ~Amaterasu~
• Source: Fragments of Memories

• Jorito: This track was done for the first go at the Final Fantasy 8 album that sadly got canceled until Darkflamewolf and I picked it up again. I selected "Fragments of Memories", a music box-like piece that plays in the Laguna Loire flashback sequences because I liked the melodic material. I really like to do slower, sad, reminiscent songs with feelz every now and then, and this was an excellent source for it. I started out with transposing it to minor key, with just piano and viola for extra sadness, but halfway changed my mind and figured it would be really interesting to switch it back to major key and make it more optimistic rather than sad.
  Early on, I also settled on the idea of making it a vocal track again to give it an extra dimension. It was a joy to work with Joy on my remix of Suikoden 2, and I just knew she had the perfect voice for this track. Not only did she deliver a great performance, she also was a great help with the lyrics, which we co-wrote, and delivered some sweet harmonies to boot.
  For lyrical concept, I thought it would be very interesting to tell the story from Ellone's perspective, reminiscing about the moments in her life. Ellone is an important character in the game, and in the first flashback she (as a small, adorable child) and Laguna bond and eventually Laguna marries with Raine, Ellone's foster mother.
  I end up using more and more live instruments as I progressed on this musical journey. For this particular track I was able to record the accordion and guitar parts myself, as well as some backing vocals. I originally reached out to Chris to perform the lead viola part because I was struggling (and lazy) to make the sampled part sound good. Chris was good enough to point out that he also plays violin and cello and hence would be able to record the entire string section. It gave the track a more intimate chamber orchestra feeling with a drier sound, which I think works really well.
  All in all really happy with how this turned out. Hope it hits you just as much in teh feelz as it did me :)
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16 - Your Smile

• ReMixed by: feraldreams. feat. Juan Medrano
• Source: Julia

• feraldreams.: This track turned out to be very melancholic, sounding distant and dreamy. The main focus is the intertwined relationship of the muted piano which mostly follows the main theme of the track, and Juan's electric guitar adding to the theme and giving it new and original ideas.
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17 - Friends Under Different Stars

• ReMixed by: GuitarSVD feat. James Perretta
• Source: Friends Under Different Stars

• GuitarSVD: The original name "Ami" means "friend" in French and it is played when Selphie's party resurfaces after a mission in the game. Since all SeeD are orphans and have different unknown backgrounds. I think of "Friends under different stars" as a title. The title also reflects the fact that James and I live on different continents (James in Europe while I'm in North America), and he plays a 17th century Gamba while I play a modern guitar. So we live under different stars and are somehow linked by the love of Final Fantasy music.
  The intention of the arrangement was to maintain the heart warming and peaceful vibe of the original OST, but added elements of friendship. Therefore I have guitar and gamba to support each other while maintaining their own identity, working together sometimes but also competing with each other occasionally. A new introduction, counterpoints, solos, etc. were also added to express the idea.
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18 - Lost in Time

• ReMixed by: Mel Decision feat. metamoogle & Cyril the Wolf
• Source: The Successor

• Mel Decision: In FF8, this track comes at the end of the game, immediately proceeding Squall becoming lost in the time compression. I wanted to evoke that feeling of hopelessness and despair as he desperately searches for his companions.
  When I started exploring this track, I tried out two very different versions: one simple version with piano and guitar, and a synth-heavy version.
  Simple won out, but it needed something. I wrote some lyrics and had metamoogle, whose voice and vocal range I thought would work well with the song, perform them. His singing instantly brought in that missing element from the song. That, along with some melancholy and verbacious guitar from Cyril the Wolf, really rounded out the track. I can't thank them enough for their contributions.
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01 - The Galbadian National Anthem

• ReMixed by: Blake Inc. feat. Cyril the Wolf
• Source: Cactus Jack

• Blake Inc.: When Jorito texted me about the upcoming Final Fantasy VIII remix album he and Darkflamewolf directed, I was immediately on board. After "Resonance of the Pure Land" I was excited to participate in another OCReMix album. FF8 is among my all-time favorite RPGs, so I was deeply familiar with the source material. Moreover, I loved the three-disc concept, but as I was late to the party, choices were already limited.
  Luckily, Cactus Jack was still up for grabs. Not only do I love this song, but it allowed me to do what I'm arguably best known for: a vocal remix. In the game, Cactus Jack is the national anthem of Galbadia. Now, I thought, wouldn't it be cool to dial this fact up to 11?
  So, imagine: a major sports event in Galbadia, maybe their ice hockey team playing for the championship. But before the game starts, the Galbadian national anthem is performed - and the crowd goes wild.
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02 - Two Scars Matching

• ReMixed by: Tuberz McGee
• Source: Don't Be Afraid

• Tuberz McGee: I had a lot of fun creating this track! I really wanted to emulate some stylings from Djent bands like Periphery and Tesseract. I took particular inspiration from my favourite Periphery song "Racecar". It was nice to tune down to Drop A and sing a chorus in four part harmony. Thanks for having me~!
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03 - Dancefloorphans

• ReMixed by: Pixel Pirates
• Source: Truth

• Pixel Pirates: We started by listening to the original and quickly decided that the main melody wasn't enough to hold our interest but the melody leading up to it had a certain something to it. Since one of the only EDM-styles applicable in this case was Big Room (which switches the main melody for the breaks) we decided to make a Big Room-esque track where the main melody is in all the slow parts and the so called drop consists of variations of the intro melody heard in the original. It is quite the departure from the original but that is a key part of a track from Pixel Pirates.
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04 - Skadooshin'

• ReMixed by: jdamashii!!
• Source: Movin'

• Jorito: Out of nowhere dropped Sir J (or jdamashii!!, as he calls himself now) with a surprise arrangement of "Movin'". I actually wasn't aware he changed his name, so when he dropped his initial WIP I was like "hey, this sounds like a Sir J track" and it took me a minute to connect the dots. In his typical style (I think he refers to it as his take on Katamari Damacy music), we get an ecclectic groovy electronic track that keeps on movin'. Interesting, eclectic and engaging, good stuff.
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05 - Filthy Lies, Wasted Virtue

• ReMixed by: Vodoú Queen & Rockos
• Source: Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec

• Vodoú Queen: Let me preface this by saying that sharing my thoughts and processes (i.e. how I compose or arrange music, art, or fiction) is extremely hard to put into words. Sometimes, it all comes in a flurry of rapid flashes of creativity from something I've enjoyed recently in a videogame, or heard on Spotify, and I want to try my hand at it. Other times, it's hard and painstaking, like pulling teeth...where I have *zero* clue what the hell I'm doing, how I'm going to achieve it, or why. More times than not, however, I have a (really) bad tendency to overshoot an idea (or several, simultaneously!), having a solid direction in mind, but unable to put pen to paper to make it all sound even remotely how I had envisioned it in the first place.
  This song, "Filthy Lies / Wasted Virtue", came off the back of me getting so burned out between music competitions and two other songs on the album, I just went, "ahh, eff' it..." threw the base MIDI together on Reaper, and sat staring at it for an hour. That hour passed, and after trying too hard to fit the pieces of the puzzle together by force, I metaphorically flipped the table, and stripped the MIDI to its barest bones (about 4 tracks): bass, lead melody, harmony line, and some other synth pluck thing. And then, I muted everything bar the song's OG bass.
  I dug that bassline.
  I *loved* that bassline.
  After I played with some sequenced bass synths from Hybrid 3, that single track struck a chord with me. And therein were the beginnings of something fruitful.
  I believe the old tried and true Bob Ross adage really describes this remix in full. From that one bass track & its harmonics honing in what I wanted to do with it, to having found further inspiration from listening to a couple of Infected Mushroom albums earlier that same day, to the random friendly convo about IM I had with my wonderful (not-quite-yet-at-the-time) collab partner a day or two prior in the general Discord group chat... it all just, fits, and honestly, I am proud of my contribution and ability to bring this song into a new light.
  Phew... sorry. TL;DR -- I guess with all that said, my last few words are: keep persevering despite your self-doubts, even if there's no current clear path to your endgame. Big shout-out to the heads of this project, Darkflamewolf and Jorito, for pushing me to challenge myself, helping with their robust critiques when we needed it most, and even allowing me the benefit (even as a first timer to these big project-type collaborations in general) to do THREE (very) differently styled songs for this headbanger of an album. Huge thank you and props to my new psytrance-loving buddy, Rockos, for his stellar additions to the track and advice on how to add more depth and fine-tuning to synths and low-end sounds. And thank *YOU*, for listening to our finished work. Hope you enjoy! :D
  And always remember: "We don't make mistakes. We just have happy accidents." ♥
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06 - Queen of Cards

• ReMixed by: GlacialSpoon
• Source: Shuffle or Boogie

• GlacialSpoon: What if the finals of a Triple Triad tournament were given a bit more hype? A Breakbeat and Big Beat styled track inspired by the likes of The Crystal Method, Hyper and General Midi. This was one of the smoother compositional processes I've had with much more time spent on sound instead.
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07 - Dead End Blitz

• ReMixed by: bLiNd
• Source: Dead End

• bLiNd: This track was an interesting source tune to play with. Most of Final Fantasy 8 has a very cinematic style so repeating patterns are hard to find and play with for an electronic track. Instead I let the original ride a little more and embellished it with a house beat. Was fun to do, hope you enjoy it!
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08 - Turn Those UP

• ReMixed by: Rockos feat. Siolfor the Jackal
• Source: Starting Up

• Rockos: Inspiration were those industrial sounds and dubstep textured bass. Also I had the collaboration of an amazing artist Siolfor the Jackal for the guitars. Thanks to the directors of this album, we have made a very proper ending to this track.
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09 - Downtown Run

• ReMixed by: Drakeld
• Source: Never Look Back

• Drakeld: Starting out this project with less Final Fantasy experience than many other remixers, we felt quite free to pick any track without leaning towards any specific fan favourites. After browsing for quite some time, we stumbled upon "Never Look Back" and immediately imagined it as a psytrance remix.
  We took inspiration from the metallic feel of the big, bad mech chase and added some far-eastern influences for no other reason than it sounding cool. The genre was a big challenge for us, since we had no prior experience with psytrance production, but that’s the upside to picking a genre after choosing the original track, rather than deciding what you want to do before you know which track to remix - the inspiration will just flow automatically.
  The result came to be a high-intensity track with a mystical vibe to it, imagined to fit at your next forest rave. So, don’t buckle up and let yourself go!
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10 - Stuck in My Mind

• ReMixed by: Jorito feat. Sirenstar
• Source: My Mind

• Jorito: When the album project restarted, I originally wanted to do a drum & bass track with vocals, mostly because I haven't really done that type of song yet, and because it had been a while since I last made a track with lyrics. I didn't want to go for one of the more obvious source tracks in the OST, yet I did want something that gave me enough melodic material to work with.
  "My Mind", essentially the track that will become Squall and Rinoa's love theme and one of the variations of "Eyes On Me", stood out to me for its simple melodic lines and structure, and I figured it would be nice to play around with it. After a quick sketch I figured the idea would work well enough, so I started playing around with an idea for the lyrics, with Rinoa head over heels in love with Squall and unable to get him out of her mind. I wanted to keep things fun, upbeat, lighthearted and not taking itself too seriously. Just having fun. One could say "Heartily" enjoyable... (I'll see myself out).
  Concept done, I started recruiting for a vocalist. I already knew I wanted to have female vocals on this track, so I was glad to have Natalie on board again, after our first Terranigma remix "Will We Meet Again?". Since she also knew and enjoyed the game (and at the end contributed her own track to the album!), it made collaborating fun and easy. It also meant that we could co-write the lyrics. Always a big help, because writing good lyrics that convey the right intent and flow well isn't easy. And of course we couldn't help sneak in a good amount of references to scenes and quotes from the game, see if you can spot them! Also enjoyed adding the dulcimer lick from the opening of "Eyes on Me" to various places in the track, as a bit of a sneaky reference and deep cut.
  During production of the track I was already thinking that this track didn't really seem to be the original drum & bass track I had in mind, but when I wrote the ending lines with the spoken word and had Natalie record those, it finally clicked with us what the genre of this track actually is: "Anime Opening Anthem". Works for me!
  Production itself was a bit of a struggle, since I did this track in Bitwig (my main DAW is Logic Pro). It was struggling with playing back the track without glitching, vocal editing was not very smooth either, and I'm still a bit unsure by how the mixing and routing works. So it was a bit of a rough journey and I couldn't *quite* get things to sound like I wanted. That's all on me though, I guess Logic Pro is just Stuck In My Mind...
  Big thanks to Natalie for jumping on board with me on this track for the entire time it was in production (about a year, this was the first track I started for the album and the last one that got finished). Hope you enjoy what we created and get some positive vibes out of it too!
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11 - Theme of the White Hole Prevention Agency

• ReMixed by: APZX feat. Jabo, Ron Wikso & TSori
• Source: Ride On

• APZX: The idea for this track was originally to just try and make a Trancy version of the track. But then I had the idea of taking a trumpet and distorting it. That was the genesis of this track honestly. TSori provided a raw trumpet recording and I messed with distorting it. From that point the track grew into what it is now. Jabo & TSori really did wonders with their parts. This track would be incomplete without their work.
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12 - The Marshall

• ReMixed by: Rockos feat. Zack Parrish & TSori
• Source: Martial Law

• Rockos: I've been on a surge of producing Drum & Bass since last year and I wanted to continue down the path. So I went and searched through the track list for a song that could fit the tempo and there it was. This song was perfect to go with the style. I also wanted to have some Rock vibe so I teamed up with Zack and asked him if he could record electric guitars. Later on, I've been suggested to use some trumpets and I got another collaborator to record those trumpets (TSori) and this is the end product. The song flows well until you hit that part where there is a jazzy solo in the original. Now transformed and discombobulated with some parts of the middle lead added with epic distorted guitars. Sounds deep, fast, toe tapping and psychedelic all at the same time!
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13 - Final Force

• ReMixed by: Ivan Hakštok
• Source: Force Your Way

• Ivan Hakštok: I always thought the Black Mages' version of this track sucks so I decided to make my own version that sucks a little less. I originally had a much longer arrangement in mind but due to my own laziness and lack of inspiration, I only had two days to record the song so I scaled it down a bit. I still love how it turned out. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
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14 - Witch Hunter

• ReMixed by: Gario
• Source: The Man with the Machine Gun

• Gario: As one of my favorite tracks of Final Fantasy 8, I've had the idea of blending Succession of Witches and Laguna's battle theme for a while. Having learned how to use Vocaloids for a separate reason recently it granted me the opportunity to actually incorporate the lyrics of that song, it led to a really slick arrangement that builds into a story of Laguna discovering and hunting witches. Honestly, the blend of themes turned out better than I thought it would; here's hoping the audience agrees that Laguna is a good fit as a hunter of witches and sorceresses
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15 - Warheads

• ReMixed by: Drakeld
• Source: Retaliation

• Drakeld: A dramatic remix for a dramatic scene.
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16 - Only a Hot Dog Between One and the Sickness

• ReMixed by: Siolfor the Jackal feat. Jabo & Serrin's Toes
• Source: Only a Plank Between One and Perdition

• Siolfor the Jackal: When I mentioned to a friend I was considering joining a FF8 album project, he suggested I do the "dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun" song since he couldn't remember the name. I eventually figured out it was "Only a Plank Between One and Perdition".
  It's a cool track, but it took me weeks to figure out what to do with it. A happy accident while playing the bassline made me realize if I dropped the lowest note and played it faster, it is basically the main riff from Disturbed's "Down with the Sickness". When I realized how well that worked with a modified melody, it made sense to borrow the iconic intro as well.
  On drums we have Serrin's Toes, who at this point is basically my permanent collaborator. In my eyes, everything he does is brilliant and that's no different here.
  Before I could finish recording, I dropped my guitar pick and hurt my neck and shoulder reaching for it. Jorito put the word out and Jabo came in on the last day to smash out a guitar solo to finish the track. Jabo absolutely nailed it, the solo fit so perfectly.
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17 - You Got Me Dancing

• ReMixed by: Treyt feat. Shea's violin
• Source: Dance With the Balamb Fish

• Treyt: The real reason this exists is because around the time I was approached to contribute to this album, I'd started experimenting with basically anything I could put guitar into. After listening through the list of tracks, this one stood out to me as something I could use to write a punk pop track (something I'd never done before). There's a lot of "I've never done before" in this track: lead vocals, supporting/harmony vocals, genre, not smashing the everloving heck out of the ceiling with compression, etc.
  Thanks to Jorito and Darkflamewolf for giving me the opportunity. It's been a motivational and learning experience, and I'm stoked I got to be a part of this.
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01 - Even Ill-Omens Need a Break

• ReMixed by: Vodoú Queen feat. dpMusicman, GameroftheWinds, SirCorn, Shea's violin & TSori
• Source: Premonition

• Vodoú Queen: Okay... Firstly, this track -out of the *three* I've done for the album- I think is my proudest labor of love. ...I don't know if I should say or call it my current "magnum opus", but it does feel like a great culmination of time and effort I've taken since September 2020 to learn the art of music production, theory, and the science of mixing. It's almost like... it has all finally started to click (to a degree, still lots to learn, mistakes made, and help along the way), but the encouragement and freedom to express has really pushed my all and my knowledge with this remix of "Premonition".
  Similar to FLWV, this started out quite small. I was already transposing / transcribing / chopping up FLWV and Premonition's MIDIs for some initial ideas for "The Extreme" remix, working *a lot* with the Sorceresses' themes from the original soundtrack, (I've got an odd interest and keenness on their lore, theories, image and allegories between the game and real-life source inspiration). I placed FLWV's haunting piano-hits into the beginnings of Prem's intimidating soundscape, and... paired with me messing with various vibraphone/bell/chime-sounds from LABS and Kontakt, and making a lot of Lo-Fi Hip-Hop tracks recently, it turned into this.
  My initial idea for "Premonition" was, actually, some sort of hilarious version in Ska / Reggae. I *might* still take up doing that as a remix, but playing with this arrangement's MIDI came smack in the middle of me doing a piece for Newgrounds' NGUAC and NGADM at the same time. In juggling those, I turned to studying old Blues and Jazz records; some of the stuff my parents used to listen to when I was a kid (Pat Metheny, being a big one). I was looking for melodical inspiration, and some stuff by The Fugees, Nujabes, and other similar-esque Hip-Hop artists for the "vibes" and atmosphere. Therein came the *spark* to do Prem in that genre, instead, with a hefty lean towards Jazz (I was in an "everything must have sax/brass" mood. xD) Jazz, but with a creepy sound design fitting for a sorceress...
  I really do hope people can hear the difference and my skills getting better and stronger step-by-step, with each of the three songs, and I hope people enjoy them all. This was a blessing on all fronts: from the timing, to the happy volunteering of live performances, to the "lightning in a bottle"-effect I felt once again embracing and listening to several artists I truly love and aspire to. John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Yusef Lateef, Maze, Jerome Najee Rasheed - it was a pleasure and an honor to try and do something akin to their iconic sound roots, styles and leitmotifs, and to equally come out with something I feel is very "me" -in developing my own style- as a chaotically-filled bundle of soulful funkyness. ♥
  Once again, shout-out to Jorito and DFW for giving me the chance and opportunity to do this. And a HUMONGOUS cheers to dpMusicman, GameroftheWinds, SirCorn, Shea and TSori for their positively wonderful live recordings woven into this song. I really don't think it would have came this far and been this unique without their input.
  Thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart. :)
  [*NOTE: Also, FWIW, as I guess a bit of easter egg about the remix's title, "ill-omen" is a reference to witches/warlocks/sorcerers/etc. being referred to as such in Europe and in the Colonial-era US, with the hunts and trials. Many times, black birds and cats were associated with them (like Ultimecia's wings), and were said to be a prelude to bad tidings, and were associated heavily with witchcraft. I also tried to carefully choose the ad-libs in the song to tie to the sorceresses in-game, with their ability of foresight and independence/disdain from and for society.]
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02 - Swagger de Chocobo

• ReMixed by: GlacialSpoon
• Source: Mods de Chocobo

• GlacialSpoon: Picture a chocobo strutting wearing shades and a sharp suit. This was one of those tracks where the idea and initial concept came together really quick but making it a full piece didn't come too easy. The main inspiration came from KOAN Sound's form of funky, percussive beat with a sweet bassline at the foreground. I didn't grasp their purity (only the neuro bass section in the middle comes close) but the result is hopefully recognisably me.
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03 - El Vuelo de los Búhos

• ReMixed by: Deedubs feat. optimizasean, Wurtzel, TSori, CNDR & Travis Kindred
• Source: Timber Owls

• Deedubs: One of my coworkers several years ago was originally from Oaxaca, Mexico. One day at work he asked if he could borrow my bluetooth speaker to play some mariachi music for me. Even though I didn't understand much Spanish, having only studied 2 years in high school, the music resonated with me in a way I didn't expect and I've been a fan of mariachi ever since. Having worked with a number of Hispanic folks in the jobs that I have had in the past, traditional Mexican music was something I had heard a number of times, but I don't think I recall having heard mariachi specifically. My knowledge of it was quite minimal, only being able to name "Mexican Hat Dance" and a few tracks from the Rayman Origins OST. Nowadays, I have a MUCH greater appreciation for it, enjoying famous singers like Vicente Fernandez, Pedro Fernandez, Juan Gabriel, and José Alfredo Jiminez, among others.
  "El Vuelo de los Búhos" was mainly inspired by Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán, particularly their renditions of "Que Bonita Es Mi Tierra," "México de Noche," and one of my all-time favorites, "Sabes Una Cosa." I arranged the original source, "Timber Owls," with the idea that I would have close to a full-size mariachi band: 6 violins, 3 trumpets, a guitar, and a guitarrón or upright bass, leaving out the vihuela as I figured one might be hard to come by, live or sampled. The original idea was also going to include Spanish vocals, but the idea was eventually scrapped.
  I am incredibly appreciative of everyone who contributed their talents to this remix. Shoutout to Sean Harding for recording all three violin parts which I ran through some effects and panning, and subtly bolstered with a string VST to create the Sean Harding Orchestra!
  Extra VST sounds were used for violins, guitar, guitarrón, and hand percussion.
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04 - Proposition and Clamor

• ReMixed by: APZX
• Source: Overture

• APZX: OThe approach for this track was one that was inspired by the disc it was supposed to go on. How does one go about taking a rather straightforward track and making it "crazy"? It took several tries, but the approach was just to try and make it interesting with arps, a proper low end, wandering leads that interleave with one another to make a coherent whole.
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05 - Willing Sacrifice

• ReMixed by: MkVaff
• Source: A Sacrifice

• MkVaff: I can't say I was the biggest fan of Final Fantasy VIII as a game, but regardless of my thoughts on my gameplay experience, the title did have some amazing visuals and music. I was drawn to how creepy and foreboding the original song was, and wanted to be sure to retain some of that feel in this piece.
  As well, I just *can't* ignore my soul's desire for something you can at least bob your head to a little bit, so I wanted to create a beat for the track that felt a little bit creepy, old, and in line with the rest of the music.
  It took me a while and many revisions to get this song to a point that I would consider "complete" but I hope that the final product itself takes listeners on a journey the same way the process of creation did for me.
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06 - El Gran Salar

• ReMixed by: CNDR feat. GameroftheWinds
• Source: The Salt Flats

• CNDR: Inspired in large part by the Uyuni salt flats in Bolivia, I wanted to do an arrangement that pulls from the Andean folk music I grew up with. Got to play around a fair bit with different rhythm patterns, which GameroftheWinds was a good sport about.
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07 - A Scar to Match

• ReMixed by: colorado weeks feat. Chromatic Apparatus, Flake & Shea's Violin
• Source: Rivals

• colorado weeks: This is my remix of the song "Rivals" from Final Fantasy VIII, which was created for the album "Final Fantasy VIII: SeeDs of Pandora". Seifer is a character who's brash, impulsive, and wears his heart on his sleeve; I wanted to reflect those qualities when approaching the arrangement of this track. The original "Rivals" is a brooding track that has a subtle undercurrent of seething jealousy. In my arrangement, I wanted to bring those emotions to the forefront and scream them from the rooftops. With all of this in mind, I chose to arrange this piece as a tango. It's a firey, passionate genre, and the theatricality of it felt appropriate for a character that's in pursuit of their "romantic dream".
  Speaking of theatricality, I really wanted to lean into the dramatics of this piece. I did my best to push the envelope of "over-the-top" wherever I could in the arrangement, almost as if this was a dramatic retelling of the opening duel from Seifer Almasy's perspective. The title "A Scar to Match" seeks to reflect that, and is intentionally ambiguous; however accurate this retelling may be could be left up to interpretation.
  This piece was filled with firsts. This was my first time writing a tango, and I quickly learned about the wide gap between familiarity with a genre as a listener and actually sitting down to compose the dang thing. Moreover, this was my first time collaborating with other musicians: Flake (on accordion), Chromatic Apparatus (on cello) and Shea (on violin) were gracious enough to lend their talents to this piece, and provided plenty of feedback about the arrangement and performance.
  Special thanks to Shea, Chromatic Apparatus, and Flake for their contributions, and to the album organizers DarkFlameWolf and Jorito for facilitating all of this. I am so thankful for all of their contributions, suggestions, and their patience. I couldn't have pulled this off without all of you!
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08 - The Oscar goes to Laguna Loire

• ReMixed by: Bluelighter
• Source: Slide Show Part 1 & Part 2

• Bluelighter: Here is an orchestra track I've made on slide show part 1 & 2, made some years ago at the beginning of the album project. As for my arrangement of Treno FFIX, I wanted to give an orchestra dimension to a piano track. This arrangement sounds like a March band at the beginning and the end. And the middle parts get closer with some movie soundtracks. For the title, I've imagined a ceremony broken by some film extracts, hence the idea of the Oscar.
  Enjoy!
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09 - Night Shift

• ReMixed by: DJ Orange
• Source: Jailed

• DJ Orange: I'm sure this BGM is lodged in the brain of every FFVIII player. Not sure what inspired Uematsu to write this melody, but it keeps hitting the major 7th on a minor chord, which is annoying, unless you are in a noir setting of some kind. Also, the harmony is a quintessential minor jazz vamp. So there you go, a weird filler track becomes jazz noir. I may have gotten a bit carried away with inserting original ideas, but I feel this is a track where you can use 100% of the source, and still have lots of room for improvisation. Special thanks to GameroftheWinds for the alto flute comping! I did my best with the fretless bass.
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10 - OH!! DEKA-DE-JAZZ-DE-CHOCOBO ~ Dirty Contacts Mix

• ReMixed by: HeavyViper
• Source: Odeka ke Chocobo

• HeavyViper: I come from a chipmusic background; I taught myself how to sequence in trackers so I could make music for FM synth soundchips. So, it should be no surprise I picked "Odeka de Chocobo" to remix.
  The original is a very simple track, essentially a straight rendition of the classic, whimsical Chocobo theme. I knew from the start I wanted to do something fairly transformative with it, but I also wanted to retain the chipmusic sound to keep it somewhat recognisable. I pictured a game system malfunctioning while playing music or a game, gradually getting worse over time. I also pictured human performers trying their best to keep time with this machine that was clearly on the way out, and getting frustrated while doing so. At some point I decided to do a jazz breakdown as well, so I guess someone managed to fix it halfway through. At least for a little while.
  All in all, this is definitely one of the more unusual pieces I've made. I thought it was a pretty funny idea, so I hope that humour comes through in the track. The original track makes me smile - it'd be great if this take on it makes people laugh.
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11 - For a Few Draws More

• ReMixed by: Flake feat. Kyle Mesce (Sorven), Audio Mocha, Cyril the Wolf, dpMusicman, Zack Parrish, Ian Martyn, Calem Destiny, Hemophiliac, Lucas Guimaraes, Treyt & TSori
• Source: The Mission

• Flake: "For a Few Draws More" takes FFVIII's "The Mission" and transports it back to the wild west, drawing inspiration from Spaghetti Western master Ennio Morricone to reimagine the infamous train heist scene from the game. The arrangement adapts the original tune to a unique instrumentation, embellishing the melody and molding the harmony to better fit the Western theme, while also taking some vocal cues from in-game dialogue.
  I've been following OCR since the early 2000s, and I'm happy to finally contribute my first arrangement 20 years later! A big thank you to cyrilthewolf, AudioMocha, dpMusicman, Sorven, TSori, Zack Parrish, Ian Martyn, and Calem Destiny for providing their performances to this project.
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12 - Still Under Her Control, But With New Management

• ReMixed by: Jean Of mArc
• Source: Under Her Control

• Jean Of mArc: Setting out to compose a remix of "Under Her Control", I had no idea what style it would be. I mean, what kind of music does one make when under someone else's control?
  I decided to make a sketch just using my voice for the music and sound effects, intending it to be stand-in for the real music. But it ended up creating a track in its own acapella style. AND IT WORKED!
  Well, kind of. Actually, not really.
  It was really hard for me to do all the parts vocally, as my singing range is at the lower end. Things weren't really going in a direction I was happy with, and I wanted to ditch it.
  And that's exactly what I did. I PUT IT IN THE SHREDDER!
  In an alternate timeline.
  But in THIS timeline, Jorito & Darkflamewolf came to the rescue! They suggested I start a new track, but keep all the best parts of the acapella mix I had so far.
  So I ended up throwing my vocals in a food processor with chiptune SFX, electric bass, synthetic saxophone, Berlin drums, 80s synths, breakbeats and squeaky toys.
  AND I CREATED... well, this. It's weird and kind of hard to explain.
  Just listen to it. If you like it, you can thank Jorito & Darkflamewolf for its existence. And if you don't like it, you can blame me, because I made it.
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13 - Weary Waltz

• ReMixed by: SirCorn feat. TSori, Dewey Newt & donut
• Source: Unrest

• SirCorn: The source material for this track (Unrest) is a loose, free form, flowing cascade of synths and melodically sparse outside of the motifs of the electric bass. I thought it would be fun to take the chord progression and write around the extended chord quality (minor 6th chords) and write vamps in the style of a chamber music ensemble. The mixed wind voices coupled with the marimba created a steady pulse, much unlike the source. I took a lot of creative liberties with original melodic material based around the harmonic progression to feature the flugelhorn and made it a point to use the closing chord stack from the source as a destination for the piece.
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14 - Into the Singularity

• ReMixed by: Sirenstar feat. Jorito
• Source: Compression of Time

• Sirenstar: I've been obsessed with this track since FF8's first PS1 release. It's all "f your tonality/harmony, gently place into dumpster while you do a bunch of tritones and parallel fifths (aka crime). But make it fashion." Yeah, sign me up.
  So, you may be asking yourself, "What else was Sirenstar doing in 1999?" The answer is, getting into j-rock but also listening to "Adiemus Greatest Hits" on repeat.
  Eternally grateful to Jorito for coming on board to mix and help refine the arrangement, all while he's been co-chairing the entire album. He has produced a total of 58328063854784 arrangements though so it was just another day for him XD. If you recall the Terranigma album from a few years ago, he was like yeah I feel like making some synthwave and then suddenly *Miami 1984 sunset grid lines palm trees intensifies*.
  Normally I'm a very lyrics-forward composer but for this arrangement, I wanted the song structure to take center stage. I haven't worked with glossolalia much before so I wondered what I was going to "say" exactly. The answer was pretty simple -- "when are you?" Because tbh when is anyone lol.
  As for the ending, a gentle reminder from myself and the album chairs to please not Compress the Time; nobody wants that and now we have to fix it, no thanks to you.
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15 - Concédeme Un Momento

• ReMixed by: CNDR feat. Earth Kid, Chris Kohler & Jorito
• Source: Eyes On Me

• CNDR: I wanted to do Eyes on Me as a ranchera valseada, along the lines of Vicente Fernández's live duets with Ana Gabriel. It was fun working with Earth Kid and Chris Kohler on this one, they brought a lot of warmth and personality to the project.
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16 - Deling City Nights

• ReMixed by: Lucas Guimaraes feat. Dionté George, dpMusicman, TheBitterRoost & MegadudeXD
• Source: Galbadia Garden

• Lucas Guimaraes: Sometimes I go into a song having a genre in mind. Other times I let the song guide me. Since I was on a tight deadline, I let the song guide me. The whole song pointed to jazz. The drums felt like something out of a spy movie. The bass felt like it belonged in a jazz standard. The chords itched for some (minor) reharmonization. I wanted to go short and sweet both to fit the genre and because I've been practicing doing more in less time. Hearing multiple people say they wish this lasted longer felt incredible.
  While this is derivative of the source (similar to JohnStacy's "Reflecting Pool" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcxrPNbBCrM), except with the tempo sped up), I wanted to be faithful to both the Bebop genre and Galbadia Garden. It was a hard balance to strike, but I feel subtle nods to the original track the whole way through and lowering the BPM from Bebop tracks (Bebop is usually 300 bpm+) helped find that compromise. The track also does a good job teasing you for more, while throwing in some amazing musicianship makes for a short and sweet track leaving everyone wanting a little more.
  Thanks to Dionté George for contributing an AMAZING Saxophone lead, dpMusicman for the wonderful piano that has so many parts that fit well, theBitterRoost for doing an amazing job on those drums, and MegadudeXD for some extra drum fills.
  Source breakdown:
  0:23 - 0:46: Both the saxophone and the vibraphone are playing the main melody. The Bass is also carrying the original bass line
  0:46 - 1:09: While the Tenor Saxophone completes the first solo, the Marimba is playing the bass part from the original song
  1:09 - 1:32: The Vibraphone is playing the original main melody along with the Tenor Saxophone again
  1:32 - 1:55: The Tenor Saxophone completes the second solo while The Marimba is playing the bass part again; this time doubled an octave to be heard better among the chaos
  1:55 - 2🔞 The Saxophone plays the original melody until about 2:07 and slowly transitions to doing its own thing. The Marimba is playing the bass, but this time in one octave. This is because the Upright Bass is also back to the original bass part. The Vibraphone is also playing the original melody the whole way through.
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17 - A Wounded Spy

• ReMixed by: Vylent
• Source: The Spy, Wounded

• Vylent: I came across a Smash Bros meme video with a pretty catchy disco tune that I sleuthed (read the comments) to find. I became a little obsessed and wanted to emulate the style, this track was the result of that endeavor.
  I wanted to keep it in the realm of the 80s so I used (mostly) classic sounds. The melodic arpeggiating synth was a Journey inspired Jupiter 8 sample, the loud bass a DX-7 sample, and the drum and orchestral hit samples were from Korg Wavestate hardware. The cheesy vocals are completely AI from a fantastic piece of software, SynthesizerV.
  As for the creation process it was pretty straightforward given that I already had an idea of where to go. I grabbed the melody, changed the rhythms and added some 80s garnishments. I didn't think of stuffing in Wounded until the tail end of the project, it ended up blending really well!
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18 - Succession of Magical Girls

• ReMixed by: Warp Whistles Music feat. Becky Reid & John Bishop
• Source: Succession of Witches

• Warp Whistles Music: What if Edea received Ultimecia's sorceress powers not as an adult but rather as a young teenage girl? I looked to reimagine the track as a more youthful piece - replacing the foreboding Gothic feel with a curiosity into a world unknown. I sought to tone down the harshness of the original harpsichord with a warmer marimba as the basis and woodwind instruments leading Edea's transformation. After all, what destiny awaits a magical girl as she grows up but to become a witch?
  Fabulous live performances by Becky and John on glockenspiel and marimba, as well as my sister Leann on flute representing a young Edea.
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19 - Smooth Heretic

• ReMixed by: KaS
• Source: Heresy

• KaS: I chose Heresy to remix for SeeDs of Pandora because I liked the idea of taking a more minimal source, and building more complex harmonies over the basic (but dark) ones present in Heresy (while still maintaining the Phrygian mode use). Additionally I liked the idea of turning the harsher source into something smoother. I anchored it to the source using the piano ostinato and the bass. I'd describe it as a sort of dark jazz influence. Was very fun working on the harmonies especially in the third quarter!
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20 - We Are The Winners

• ReMixed by: Jorito feat. Numoon, Sirenstar, TSori, Dewey Newt & Cyril the Wolf
• Source: The Winner

• Jorito: This track kinda started out as a joke, with Darkflamewolf, Natalie (Sirenstar) and me brainstorming a bit about a potential rap track. We were asking ourselves what it'd be like if the Balamb Garden disciplinary committee (consisting out of Raijin, Fujin and Seifer) would corner Squall and his party somewhere and do a bit of a taunting rap battle, in the vein of those Epic Rap Battles of History some people might remember from earlier Youtube days. Sounded like an interesting and a bit silly, crazy idea, and of course that's exactly what's needed to get me on board.
  After evaluating the available tracks, we selected the Victory Fanfare as something that could potentially work as a 90s inspired hip-hop rap track. I quickly laid down some foundation by resampling the original Fanfare and chopping it up with some oldskool production techniques (a lot of fun to relearn that) and turned the pretty repetitive remainder of the source track into the backdrop for rap and other vocals.
  I already managed to cast Natalie as Fujin, who, apart from uttering angry single syllables in the game, seems to have a hidden talent for some epic Fergie-style vocals. Finding somebody who could write appropriate rap lyrics and perform them was a bit more difficult, but with some help I managed to find Jamey (Numoon), who also did an epic job on performing as Raijin, with just the right amount of taunt and philosophical meandering, ya know? Lastly, Cyril completes the Disciplinary Committee as Seifer, and while his appearance is brief, it does make quite the impact ;)
  Originally the track featured a resampled and chopped up version of the original game's music, but of course that's not acceptable for an OCReMix album. I recreated the entire fanfare part and managed to recruit TSori on trumpet and Dewey Newt on trombone to perform the parts and fill out the team. Managed to sneak in a quick guitar and bass recording in I did myself as well to round out the last parts.
  All in all this was a very interesting track to tackle and I'm really proud of what we've managed to create. Big thanks again to all my collaborators, this track wouldn't exist without you!
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01 - Voces Maledictionis et Spei: Children Fated to Lead

• ReMixed by: HeavenWraith feat. JoyDreamer, Bonnie Bogovich, Vodoú Queen, Ian Martyn & colorado weeks
• Source: Liberi Fatali

• HeavenWraith: It's been increasingly hard to describe what is the inspiration of my works, as eventually it just becomes an amalgamation of various artists I appreciated over time and music production experience I accumulated. One of the more easy to define influences are those of the first minute of the track - "The Colossus" and "Nightmare in the Den" from Final Fantasy X-2.
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02 - If Time Stood Still

• ReMixed by: Earth Kid feat. Erika Richards
• Source: Eyes On Me

• Earth Kid: The original vision of this song was "What if Evanescence performed Eyes on Me?" As a long-term fan of both Final Fantasy and Evanescence, I had to see this idea through to fruition. I wrote the arrangement, sang the vocal parts, and played piano and harp. To give this track the full impact it needed, Erika performed the guitars, bass, helped out with programming, and took charge of mixing. With her help, we transformed it into a proper power ballad. I even added a little reference to one of the Evanescence songs that inspired this arrangement, "Good Enough."
  In arranging and singing this song, I tried to portray the emotions both Julia and Rinoa must have felt during their respective moments with Laguna and Squall: blossoming feelings of love, a desire to stay with them, and, especially in Rinoa's case, for time to stand still. That iconic and touching scene with Squall and Rinoa in the Ragnarok is ultimately what inspired the title. This classic track was fun to work on, and I hope you will enjoy listening too!
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03 - Set the Stage on Fire

• ReMixed by: Zack Parrish
• Source: The Stage is Set

• Zack Parrish: The album needed more tracks to be done after the final deadline had passed, and this became available. I originally was going to try and just go hard using nothing but synth... but it wasn't hard enough so I just threw everything at it. Of course, now instead of it sounding like the original where you are preparing for battle... sounds more like you are already in one...
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04 - The Sorceress' Knight

• ReMixed by: Deedubs
• Source: Force Your Way

• Deedubs: Once again, an opportunity to remix a favorite track of mine for another album project arised, this time with "Force Your Way" from Final Fantasy VIII. When thinking how how to approach this remix, my thought process was, "What would this theme sound like if it was given the FF7 Remake treatment?" In no way do I feel like my remix is up to par with the incredible FF7 Remake OST, but it was a lot of fun to see what I could do!
  It's not often I write anything with a full symphony orchestra in mind nowadays, let alone combine it with choir and drums. Last time I wrote such a track was when I remixed Eschebone from Jet Force Gemini for the "Mizar Attacks!" OCR album a few years ago. That particular track took me several months to finish. For this remix, I only had a little more than a month available, so some initial doubts were there, but I felt like I was up to the challenge. Of course, I went through the inevitable creative brick wall and "I don't think this is going to work" phase, but despite that as well as getting over some poorly timed sickness, I pushed through as best as I could and was able to finish the remix in good time. Huge thanks to Darkflamewolf and Jorito for their valuable feedback and support throughout this process!
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05 - Heavy Residents

• ReMixed by: Rockos feat. Zack Parrish & Cyril the Wolf
• Source: Residents

• Rockos: This song is directly inspired from the song "Heavyweight" from Infected Mushroom. It's the same style of experimentation and has this guitar driven vibe with some wobbling and effects everywhere. Structure is a mess and it is intended to be. The song goes through multiple iterations and keeps itself fresh. The goal was to have this psychedelic thing going on and some epic moment through it like a toe tapping song would have while being silly. I have 2 collaborators for this track. Zack Parrish recorded the electric guitars and Cyril the Wolf recorded the bass.
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06 - The Tolls of Stringent Obligation

• ReMixed by: Zack Parrish feat. Chromatic Apparatus, Pearl Pixel, Cyril the Wolf & Angel Hernandez
• Source: The Landing

• Zack Parrish: Having already done 3 tracks on the album, and seeing this iconic track open up on the list toward the end of the album's deadline for submission... I thought... why not give it a chance. When I listened to the track the first thing that popped into my head was Christmas Eve by Trans Siberian Orchestra (most people just call it "Carol of the Bells"...).
  I was determined at that point to craft an FF8 arrangement in the style of that particular track of theirs. Originally I was going to use a couple of other guitarists to perform all the guitar parts but because of life and lack of time in the end I just did them all myself, but still kept the door open for someone to record cello (Chromatic Apparatus), flute (Alex Parrish, le wife), bass (Cyril the Wolf) and drums (Angel Hernandez).
  The core of the track is still very much The Landing but peppered with nods to the TSO inspiration. Even the title of the track is an acronym for them :)
  All 4 performers did awesome work. I've of course used my wife several times over for flute, oboe, etc... This is my second time working with Chrom and he's a delight as always and did awesome once again. First time working with Cyril or Angel but they both brought their A game. For the drums I gutted that part and left it entirely in Angel's hands to craft that part, and he cranked it out in 2 hours. Cyril also contributed some additional parts and variations throughout his part that brought the bass into a much more exciting place than the typical "just dub the rhythm..." spiel. Also a nod to Viking Guitar for linking me up with Angel for the drum part. I had planned on using him in this track but alas... time wasn't my friend this time.
  Anyway, I hope you enjoy the track and get a feeling of nostalgia not just for FF8 but also for TSO.
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07 - High Tides and Lunar Cries

• ReMixed by: Audio Mocha
• Source: Lunatic Pandora

• Audio Mocha: I love a ton of tracks from FF8 but I knew I wanted to go for one of the more left-field choices and decided on Lunatic Pandora from my list of favorites. I knew it was going to be a high energy modern surf along the lines of Daikaiju but the addition of the EHX C9 guitar (which is what's acting as the organ) had me make a mix of older surf and more modern surf punk. For a bit, I was considering making the organ an accordion and trying to go for a Tango Surf kind of track, like Shakira's "Te Aviso, Te Anuncio" (titled "Objection" for its English version) but couldn't quite make it gel right for this track.
  Another interesting thing about this track is that it was my very first time using Rayzoon Jamstix for the drums instead of Drummic'a, which has a completely workflow since I was no longer manually creating every single note but rather dictating the AI to help with humanizing the fills; Some parts were still manually created but overall, it was more fiddling with a massive amount of knobs to get the drums just right per part. Another thing that I did was use my new Bass VI as both the bass but also as a rhythm guitar. I essentially had one rhythm guitar as a standard guitar while the Bass VI had the same chords but an octave lower, performed on the higher strings. It's been something I've been trying out since most of my surf tracks have a lead that's on a pretty low-ish register (8th to 12th fret, which is pretty low compared to other higher-gain genres like metal, where the guitar tends to live beyond the 12th fret); Doing this allows me to have a crunchier rhythm while also not encroaching on the lead guitar's register too much. I also got to show a preview of this track (with Darkflamewolf and Jorito's approval) during Bonus Stage September 22 so a lucky few got to have a taste of the album beforehand. I hope you enjoy it!
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08 - In Horto Dormit Nuntius

• ReMixed by: Fishy
• Source: The Castle

• Fishy: This has long been one of my favorite FFVIII tracks for its playful intro, comic dissonance and sudden changes; a fitting theme for a Time Witch's castle. I tried to retain those elements while upping the rock factor. I particularly enjoyed making the envelope filter guitar sound I made for the sillier bits. I had to go down to dropped Ab on the ol' 7 string to keep the original key.
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09 - SeeDs of Pandora

• ReMixed by: Jorito feat. Sirenstar, Chromatic Apparatus & Juan Medrano
• Source: SeeD

• Jorito: This was a track I originally didn't plan on doing for the album, but due to a dropout this key track became available again and we had a slot to fill, just a few weeks before the deadline. Unfortunately I couldn't make it work with the remnants the previous artist left, so I opted to start from scratch, giving it a bit of a cinematic twist.
  The source track doesn't have much to it, it's mostly percussion and a few sporadic melodic lines. I opted to use the percussion as-is, and sprinkle it throughout the source (mostly the big drums and the snare rolls). The melodic parts and variations thereof were used throughout the track as well, yet spread out over the entire run length in a different order. Even though the arrangement tells its own story, with its introspective, tense and big moments, I hope people can still recognize it and tell how it is linked to the source track.
  I tend to work with collaborators whenever I can, and this track was no exception. I wrote this track and parts with specific instruments and performers in mind, and I'm thrilled they all joined me on the ride. From the airy vocal lines from Natalie, to the serene cello played by Chromatic Apparatus and finally the soaring guitars by Juan, they all gave the track their voice and blew some extra life into it. Big thanks for helping out!
  Finding a good title was more of a struggle than making the track (something I'm sure people can relate to). When Darkflamewolf suggested just naming it similar to the album (not the first time that happened!), I thought that made a lot of sense. And I'll admit, it's kinda cool to have your work carry the same title as the album :)
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10 - Make Them Bleed

• ReMixed by: Zack Parrish feat. Earth Kid & Viking Guitar
• Source: The Legendary Beast

• Zack Parrish: MAKE. THEM. BLEED.
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11 - Maybe I'm a Lion or Maybe I'm Not

• ReMixed by: Ian Martyn feat. Darby Cupit, Ian Cowell, Leo Martyn, Carrie Wood & MegadudeXD
• Source: Maybe I'm a Lion

• Ian Martyn: The final boss sequence in Final Fantasy VIII has always intrigued me, and of course Maybe I'm a Lion is an iconic track. I decided to write some original lyrics and turn it into a prog rock track as the original is already highly chromatic and could easily be transformed by changing time signatures. I was also always touched by the character of Griever and wished that he could have been fleshed out more in the story, and I tried to capture his anguish in the choral section at the end. As always, thank you to the incredible collaborators I got to work with this time around.
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12 - All Existence Denied

• ReMixed by: Capt'n Shred & Vodoú Queen
• Source: The Extreme

• Capt'n Shred: As we started working on this track, two main goals surfaced: we wanted to make a journey out of it, and we wanted to give it its own sonic identity - a blend of styles and influences.
  Production-wise, we sought to mix the usual metal band ensemble with synths and some EDM- influenced elements. The goal was to create something dense, rich and a bit more unique-sounding than a strictly metal or electronic track. In terms of the arrangement, special attention was paid to making sure the distinct sections flowed in a way that made sense and told the story of a long battle with peaks and valleys; moments of triumph and madness; aggression and introspection.
  =
  This was definitely one of the most challenging things I've worked on, in terms of both playing and production/mixing. We are really proud of this one, and I hope you enjoy the trip. Shoutout to my computer for not dying on me while mixing this.
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13 - Succession of Power

• ReMixed by: Chris Kohler feat. GameroftheWinds
• Source: The Successor

• Chris Kohler: What if the Successor wasn't a solo piano piece but a full-on orchestral arrangement? "Succession of Power" is basically my answer to that question. I really enjoyed working on this track because there's just so much awesome and beautifully emotional musical material Uematsu wrote into "The Successor". On top of that it was real pleasure to collaborate with GameroftheWinds, who for this track recorded page after page of sheet music on a variety of wind instruments.
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14 - And That's the End

• ReMixed by: Rockos feat. Chris Kohler
• Source: Ending Theme

• Rockos: Last minute pick, this song's focus was to have a kinda Rock DnB style to it. The source in itself is smooth and mellow. It's the ending you know. But turning it into an action packed guitar/bass drum thing was unexpected and a welcome idea. The first few drafts were just fine, and then a big change came. The turn around happened because of the last part of the source which includes a much larger scale of instrument. It then happened and the song turned out how it is. Asked Chris for trumpets and played the rhythm guitars myself for the second time on a remix. It was a lot of learning and a lot of fun. Thanks Chris. And thanks to both directors for pointing me to this beautiful song.
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01 - Net Fish and Chill

• ReMixed by: Mel Decision feat. Lucas Guimaraes & GameroftheWinds
• Source: Fisherman's Horizon

• Mel Decision: When approached to see if I was interested in participating in the last-minute bonus disc, I jumped at the chance. I wanted to rearrange something in a style I was comfortable with given the time crunch. I trawled through the OST, and when I realized Fisherman's Horizon already had a relaxed vibe, I knew that would be the one. Lofi felt like a good fit, and it's a genre I felt like I could pull off in the allotted time. Sax by Lucas (Thirdkoopa) and Bass Clarinet by GameroftheWinds really brought this to life!
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02 - No Shuffle, No Boogie

• ReMixed by: Lucas Guimaraes feat. Sir Telias
• Source: Shuffle or Boogie

• Lucas Guimaraes: With deadline approaching, we were looking for ideas that could be finished fast in like a week's time. I chose this track because it's one of the shortest tracks. Due to the minimal amount of source material, this actually proved to be pretty difficult to arrange. I love creating new arranging challenges for myself though. Sir Telias was gracious enough to lend his piano at the last minute to this.
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03 - The Definition of Lunacy

• ReMixed by: Vodoú Queen & Zack Parrish
• Source: Tears of the Moon, Intruders, Blue Sky

• Vodoú Queen: This song began as a premise of filling out content for the 5th, last hour album of SeeDs of Pandora... and I fully believe it became something more than that.
  Lucas Guimaraes came to me with a proposal on Discord DMs if I wanted to help out with his and Zack Parrish's idea to expand on the original 69 songs, to beat the OCR record of "longest/biggest album/project done" on the site. His reasoning? I can throw out something pretty decent in a very short span of time. I found that a compliment to be proud of, considering he seemed well-pleased with what I had managed with his own project in the works. And -irony notwithstanding- *this* song ended up being almost kin to that one.
  I asked him: "what sources *haven't been* covered yet from the FF8 OST?"
  He had three answers;
  Intruders. Blue Sky. Tears of the Moon.
  I immediately went onto YouTube to listen to these sources, and laughed. Not because they were bad, but they were incredibly short. Maybe 20-30 second snippets, two of which were made for cutscenes/dialogue-inserts (Tears and Sky), and one being mostly done in-between the sneaking segments and montages of the game (Intruders)... but was comprised of nothing but bassline and a couple of string plucks. Once again, I found myself with very small, very short source material... that I somehow needed to make into a full arrangement. He did say, "you don't have to", to which I replied: "challenge accepted", and immediately went to work.
  Few hours down the line, few additions made, few cuts to the sources... and we had something. This one in particular, I wanted to do a different bend to the genre. Still along the lines of the one I did for Lucas' project (futuristic/cyberpunk synthwave a la something from Blade Runner or The Terminator), but with a unique spin. And then I once again revisited the OST for TRON: Legacy... and it hit me.
  *Orchestral* Synthwave, with heavy aspects of the big budget Film Score feel. It was something I never tried before, and being a huge fan of Ursine Vulpine (Frederick Lloyd)'s work with Annaca for film and tv, I thought it would marry quite well to the vibe of the three sources, seeing as they come from Final Fantasy VIII's prolific cutscenes. The biggest inspiration for this take/remix is the cover of "Wicked Game" by Ursine Vulpine. :D My hope is -in the end- that others will think the same. I'm really proud of this one, and think it comes out full of passion and strength in using (what I felt) were the key, recognizable bits of each source to swell into the film score-inspired opus I set out to create...
  A big shout out and thank you to Zack Parrish for helping me give this the icing on the cake it needed (he did the metal guitar work and provided the 'beating heart', very cinematic drum samples! Those additions gave the piece so much edge and life, and I cannot thank him enough for those!) Also a shout out to Lucas (ThirdKoopa) for believing in me, my work, and giving me an opportunity to submit more to this lovely album (and let those last unclaimed tracks see the light of day!) Please enjoy the bonus track(s), from all of us who participated in this 11th hour 5th disc... ♥ :)
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04 - Time Will Compress

• ReMixed by: Zack Parrish
• Source: Compression of Time

• Zack Parrish: You've heard of mashed potatoes... well I bring you... mashed timatoes!
  I'll see myself out.
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05 - Untethered

• ReMixed by: Mel Decision feat. Zack Parrish
• Source: Drifting

• Mel Decision: "Drifting" is a track without a ton of meat on it. How to stretch out a track without a ton of source material? Ambient! Slow it down, bring in a bunch of texture, some long pads (plus the existential horror of floating through space), and boom, we've got a remix. Thanks to Zack Parrish for bringing in some much needed percussion to breathe some life into the track. Hope this remix makes your heart race and your palms sweat.
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06 - Song of the Desperado

• ReMixed by: Lucas Guimaraes feat. Shea's Violin, ETHEReal String Orchestra & Chromatic Apparatus
• Source: The Man with the Machine Gun

• Lucas Guimaraes: When I initially signed up for this album, there were barely any tracks left. I took what I could. So with the Bonus Disc emerging to life, I knew that I had to go big or go home: I wanted to take on one of my most beloved songs from the whole OST: Man with the Machine Gun.
  I had the idea of a String Quartet. I knew there would be some challenges in this. First, String Quartets are hard to do and this would be my first (serious) attempt at one. I also knew that covering such an iconic theme with a new take wouldn't prove easy. I grabbed Shea's Violin, Andrew Steffen, and Chromatic Apparatus, three of some of the best string players I know. I looked for feedback on string writing wherever I could, spent a while making the recordings line up (probably to the point of diminishing returns) and more.
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07 - Witches be Witches

• ReMixed by: Zack Parrish feat. Vodoú Queen
• Source: Succession of Witches

• Zack Parrish: Witches be hatin', bru.
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08 - As One Closes, Another Opens

• ReMixed by: Treyt
• Source: The Loser

• Treyt: As the game over theme, you'd think this track would be a little less chipper right? I went into this expecting to make a sort of somber chippy-tuney-ish track, but everything in the track just screamed a weird positivity that I completely latched onto and took the whole way through. I just kept having more and more fun with it, and I think it shows.
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09 - Moments [Synthwave remix]

• ReMixed by: Jorito feat. Sirenstar & Lucas Guimaraes
• Source: Fragments of Memories

• Jorito: We were a few weeks before release of the album when a few of the remixers were like "Hey, why is this not the biggest OCR album? Let's give it a final push and create some more music!". That idea sounded intriguing to me, and a good excuse to make some more music. Since all the tracks that were not part of the first four discs were already taken, the only option was to remix a track that already was done before for the album. And what better thing to do than to (again) remix one of your own remixes?
  For this track I decided to lean into my arrangement of "Fragments of Memories", and specifically the minor key I used in the first half of "Moments". Also, given the short amount of time and my fondness for the genre, I couldn't resist turning it into synthwave once again. Since there were already lyrics for "Moments", it made a lot of sense to make it a vocal remix too. Fortunately Natalie (Sirenstar) was once again on board to provide some kickass vocals for it, as well as some voice acting with lines gracefully borrowed from Ellone's in-game script. Structure-wise it's a bit different from "Moments" though; while I was able to use the verses as-is, I felt that what was a bridge in my original remix would serve better as the chorus for some more oomph, and I had to repurpose the original chorus as the sax solo (courtesy of Lucas Guimaraes). An interesting arrangement puzzle, for sure, but I think it worked out well in the end. This also happens to be the first track I actually played the lead guitar myself on. Needed too many takes and help editing, but it's progress!
  So there you have it, an unexpected remix of a remix that I hope you'll enjoy and makes you go "Hey, did I hear this before?" in a good way. Many thanks to my collaborators Natalie and Lucas for joining me on this one!
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10 - The Definition of Insanity

• ReMixed by: Treyt & Vodoú Queen feat. Zack Parrish, Lucas Guimaraes & Darkflamewolf
• Source: Tears of the Moon

• Treyt: This track... hoo boy. This track is a remixed remix with 4 collaborators and a producer. When I started I had no idea what I wanted to do, just that I was gonna see if dubstep would work. After working with the original remixer, Vodoú Queen, and getting a drop and some foundational sound laid out, I asked a guitarist for some sicc chugs so I could do a metal/dubstep fusion on the second drop. This intrigued another artist that was in on the conversation, and he suggested baritone saxophone. I honestly did NOT think he was serious at first, but apparently he was dead serious. Not expecting much, I said sure, see what you can come up with.
  ... and here we are. A dubstep/trap fusion with heavy guitar and, of all things, baritone sax. This track will not be the weirdest on the album, and maybe not even the most insane, but everyone that contributed are 100% my definition of insanity, and we had a ton of fun.
  Please enjoy.
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11 - Existence Still Denied

• ReMixed by: Vodoú Queen feat. Zack Parrish
• Source: The Extreme, Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec, Premonition, Force Your Way, The Castle, Prelude

• Vodoú Queen: And so, we once again reach the apex of the mountain...
  It's been almost a year since I revisited my half of this album's 'The Extreme' remix, "All Existence Denied". I hadn't planned on revisiting it, nor planned to add a revised version of it to the 5th bonus disc. *All* of this came from a private DM with Zack, and him asking about the remix and what my contribution to the collaborative effort was, directly. I do not think he had even heard the remix itself of the original 69, but I gave him an MP3 render that I had to dig out of the recesses of my old Seagate HD (the PC I had done the work has since imploded, although thank the gods the hard drive still worked!)
  And then, he asked: "would you like to reignite your vision for the 5th disc?"
  I was a bit hesitant; partially because of just how insanely large the DAW file was alone (145 tracks... it wasn't easy mixing all of those beforehand...), and how intricate the BPM changes were within said file... and he was asking this about 3-4 days *before the due date* for our work to be mastered and turned in for evaluation. But after some kindly chatter, I relinquished, and said: "f*ck it, why not?"
  Not only did I want to —after thinking on it— go back and see if what I've learned in mixing and post-production since after its inception could actually crank it from that 11 threshold to a full 12 banger (and I hope it did!), but to see if I could utilize *solely* the EDM aspects of the original, and kind of re-add my original plans for the piece itself. I believe what Capt'n Shred and I had done was beautifully married together, and a great, solid remix that went beyond the realms of usual remixes for "The Extreme", and we had accomplished not falling into the category of sounding 'like another The Black Mages' rendition of the source.
  But... what else could *I* bring to the table? How could I make it evolve and grow, and in turn, show my growth as a musician and music producer?
  Zack and I batted ideas back and forth. He implored me to completely rework the Interlude/Trap section from the original and have it much more focused, much more simplified - and to add a rap to it!! And well, since Darkflamewolf mentioned before that they *really* thought a 'Sorceress rap' would be cool, and I've done it once before... I figured to try and put more of what bit of vocal / singing talent I've got and do my best at it. Synths were strengthened, leads and basses I tried to tweak and fix by having better call/response action to each other. FX chains were re-examined and ripped apart and envelopes built back again...
  ... And here we are, once again at the final precipice of this 10 min 'magnum opus'.
  My hope is that this shows a stark contrast to the original, but also is an homage *to* the original by having those callbacks, whilst being a remix in its own right. I hope it keeps people's interest, and they find something new or something they hadn't noticed before, every time they listen to the song. I did my best to make it distinct and have something different and fresh every time the vibe and flow switched gears, and I'm actually very proud of the vocal work I did with this, and all that I've managed to accomplish in wrangling the Frankensteinian beast I had created. . .
  I cannot express how thankful I am for Zack coming to me, just having a talk with me, and wanting me to push myself, express myself, and get my work out there. If it wasn't for him, (or his fantastic ability to fix my horrible transposing and MIDI mistakes, or his truly kick-ass, epic drum creations, OR those wonderful beginning sound effects that lead into the Overture!), I don't think this dream would have come true. The entirety of this album has been one hell of an experience —for better, and almost not at all for worse— and what I've learned in the interim, and the extremely kind people I've met and became friends with has been one of the best experiences in my 30-or-so-years of living on this Earth...
  Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart. Please enjoy, and always remember...
  Your Existence. Is still. Denied. ♥
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Artists

Artwork

Azurelly

Elly

EdgeKagami

EdgeKagami

OverClocked ReMix

Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans.

OCRは１９９９年に創立されて、ゲーム音楽への感謝、保存、演出に専念するための組織です。OCRの主要な活動は ocremix.org で見つかるインターネットサイト。このサイトに数百のゲーム音楽好きに作られたリミックスのMP3と、ゲームの音楽と作曲家の情報と、音楽家を熱望している人のための供給源と、にぎやかなゲーム音楽のファンがいっぱいいます。

All original compositions and characters from this album are copyright their respective owners. Arrangements are available under the OverClocked ReMix Content Policy terms of use.