LogFAQs > #964441141

11st
Game: Klonoa 2: Lunatea's Veil
Title: Moonlight Museum Ver. 1
Composer: Hiromi Shibano
Nominator: @Mr_Lasastryke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqz3TLtehmU

also known as "Maze of Memories"

you suspected this would be low because i "dislike happy music" and its very simple "kindergarten music class" start. you wouldn't be wrong that something like that is /risky/, but this is one of my absolute favorite incarnations of something super happy in a video game i can think of. (Very similar feelings on this one to luwiera's forest, they're both up here for being an anomaly where they're "this particular type of happy that i actually LOVE" )

the appeal to me...basically everything about it

1) the fullness and density of the individual harmonies, the make me think of[insert jazz fusion musician name] and stuff. they're voiced in such open ways, and have just enough emphasis on these chord hits, interesting timing of their injection into your ears......it makes me feel like i am in a dream. or like the softness of klonoa's "fluffy ears"

2) the fact that it's rhythmically centered around important elements not coming in on beat 1 as you might expect them to (particularly the chords). and in fact a lot of the distinct feel of the groove to this being that it's very easy to---if you're fixating on particular layers---get completely turned around on where beat 1 is. it's much like your spyro nom in a way! in that way: I'll get turned around and perceive beat 1 as being in a completely different place depending on what layer i'm fixating on

3) the sound design which is so cool like that...yeah "90s synths" or whatever (a couple of my favorite jv1080 patches show up here, i believe. the same exact ones you can hear in some other very happy game soundtracks i enjoy such as "opoona" and "rolled out" and "everything by yasuhisa watanabe"). [[see 0:17 of the opoona song below]]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glhluEt32q0

i like the era of synth sound design still being in the early 90s in 2004 of course, and sound direction the klonoa series was chosen to have. but also the production here is extremely full and nice! all these synth pads vibrate and morph; the synth leads are super organic. the plucked string bass has a neat quirky filter; flanged drums. the sound design is honestly rather strange, but it still manages to conjure stained glass and "artwork" and the serene decision to remain at a position of indecision eternally because you want to relive your memories for eternity (also Ver 2 has even weirder sound design, easily...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XITov1R0Z8

Hiromi Shibano is a very strange composer, almost all of their music to the Klonoa series is really strange atonal and minimal stuff that sounds something like this. weird bendy synths, odd time, and dissonant scales being primary choices:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1aADI-G6uU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GIoJsAcRzU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3cVQOdBRqU

and even outside of klonoa this is pretty much their angle. Getting bendy sounds out of the genesis, odd timesigs, weird tension stuff;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb0zslcIZ0E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYoQyykOl4I
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs0jBP1cMbU

they're like THE "atonal tension song person" in the klonoa soundtracks, which is a role i of all people will deeply respect... but Moonlight Museum is BEAUTIFUL by contrast. it's one of the brightest and most crystalline and happiest tunes in the whole series! (which is saying something, given how those traits are very prominent overall in the klonoa series)

but something that tops this all off, to make this all even stranger, is that Moonlight Museum was originally a Wonderswan Chiptune! and this klonoa 2: lunatea's veil version is a cover of that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0dRqYCF4Vk

i definitely prefer the full production of the lunatea's veil version, and so much of why i like it is the layers and layers of intersecting separate ideas, which can't really be conveyed in only the 4 channels of the wonderswan. but it's really beautiful to see the transformation

Moonlight Museum is absolutely the least weird song by this composer; their one really beautiful, fully produced and happy and pretty piece. and you know? i think it's probably my favorite by them in the end. you'd expect me to lean toward their weirdest, but this has a similar appeal to me that like "yes going pop in the 80s" does. you can /tell/ it's a composer who's typically more weird, with inclinations towards the complex and unconventional. but all the injections of those off-kilter elements are subtle, if not somehow managed to be presented in a way that evokes the simultaneous beauty AND dark-beneath-the-surface mazelike awe and wonder of the context of this place in-game

(the story behind this level, and the people residing there, is one of my favorite aspects of the series. the idea is fascinating...people who never go outside, and are secluded from most of reality really, and instead spend their lives reliving the past, their favorite memories, over and over, never looking away from the visions of their pasts they have chosen to trap themselves in forever. it takes the idea of "nostalgia" to extremes, and the 90s-ness of this song...while it probably wasn't intended at the time...VERY MUCH means something powerful now to convey the context. Maze of Memories indeed)

it's cute; but it's a type of cute that's not simple. it has an initially simple exterior, but everything other than the first couple notes is honestly pretty delicately balanced subtle intricacy. the chords are not simple, the rhythms other than that initial ostinato aren't simple, the sound design is not simple, and there's a ton going on at once!!! i think sometimes it's easy to get the misleading impression that i dislike simplicity in itself; but like...i constantly talk about how much i like steve reich. steve reich is DEFINED around how simple and minimal he is. this track appeals to me for a lot of the same reasons i like steve reich too; repeating layers that are simple, but interacting with each other in ways that still take an effort to comprehend all of. i think it it were tonally more like sus/quartal/whatever-y instead of major "how to play a scale"-y, it'd be VERY reich.

my brother and i have a very large spherical plush that we named "Hiromi Shibano" because it is just like those things in Klonoa that are called "Moos" that are like that too that you can step on
<img src="https://i.pinimg.com/736x/92/e6/bf/92e6bfd3c0a0cbeda7752a73ff2acd8a.jpg">
(it's not this exact variant but it looks quite similar)

<img src="https://c.tenor.com/In5cX2mFHDYAAAAC/klonoa-klonoa2.gif">