LogFAQs > #953814451

linkage-alter
Soaring Through Azure Sadness
Discovery

-(Jake Kaufman V I R T on the green streets, softly colliding every extended harmony possible. 4 pitch classes? Or at least pitch classes involved in a chord that are either one whole step or half step apart, so that you are a BIG LION just like red. jake kaufman thinks he is so cool and that is why he is famous. With this track i'm all about both the individual chords and their movements. The funky syncopation of those chord blips at the beginning is great. Later on these really startling emotive progressions in the more melodic sections like :29-:57 make me start floating in the air. 1:27-2:22 has similarly WHOA IM IN SPACE (but not cuba) chord changes that make me happy!!! I usually like edm but this isn't the type of edm i like infused into whatever i may be listening to, more sidechain-y than i look for, so that's actually a detractor for me, but in the end that's more of a minor nitpick about the aesthetic. the composition i like all around)-

-[i'm a pretty big fan of xaki's subset of tracks for umineko so it's not surprising that i'm a big fan of his work in "umineko" as well. linkage-alter's always appealed to me in its glitchiness, especially those buzzing panning moments. The way it can be difficult to tell the difference between the synth bass and the glitchy elements is also really cool, the super short high blips on that sound blur the line between composition and instrumentation/production, and i love stuff that feels that. the thing that excites me most here is any multilayered looping rhythms (polymeter). 1:16-2:01 leans into that really well, the piano loop in 6/4 while the drums come in in frantic beats more likely to be interpreted as 4/4 (and the synth bass is 3/8 on top of THAT). the low piano rhythm just before the drums come in is great for enforcing these feelings of so many different possible loop points to latch onto at once too
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I like dissonance but i feel like that's a reductive way to look at this track, it's actually pretty tonal and conventional outside of clearly deliberate exceptions where it dives into less than a second of chaos. but what I really like is where this has these really striking contrasts between the conventional moments and unconventional ones. Sometimes sudden jumps like the weird unexpected bits from :05-:07 or whatever. That polymetric part at 1:16 is an interesting example to look at though, the main loop is like, major scale normal notes, but the low piano at like 1:45 is doing this wild stuff that has no relation to the above and man it's just such a interesting contrast and way to build tension. The contrast of the conventional/unconventional layered on top of each other rather than rapid violent alternation like the rest of the song. It makes me happy to hear a song where it's way of building tension, contrast, emotion, is centered around treating dissonance as such a casual potential option, and making startling jumps into it at just the right moments for impact]-

-{not a close match, but certainly a match where i very much enjoy both songs.}-

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-(Soaring Through Azure Sadness blue skies i've certainly talked about many times already, so i dont feel the need to go too much in depth again. I've always liked it, love the instrumentation, the melody is cool and dramatic. my favorite bit is unsurprisingly the odd time section (7/4) from 2:48 - 3:10, and when the same section continues after 3:10 but in 6/8 more like the rest it's a neat rhythmic comparison for having multiple ways of feeling similar melodic ideas. that whole bit's my favorite section of this tune even regardless of my odd rhythm obsessions, it's just the section i find most melodically "emotional". For some reason whenever i listen to this track i picture sunset, RED or YELLOW skies, this tune is misnamed!!! what the fuck!!!)-

-[i think mm11's ost gets too much hate, but at the same time i'd be lying if i said i was a fan, so i get it (i still love block man though!!!). I think individual songs in a vacuum (like vgmc) feel a lot less "all the songs sound the same so i can't remember them unmemorable bad"; but the common criticism of this ost isn't unearned, there's definitely a reason for it, they're just hard to distinguish from each other!
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This actually falls into similar trap as soft collision for me but much worse, i like edm, but this just isn't the kind i like. but i can still think of plenty of positive things to say here! I like the attention to detail, it's actually never boring, there's all sorts of things going on in the track, and on any relisten i could choose to focus on a different layer. basically everything except for the melody is way more interesting than the melody lol--and that's ok with me! I wish the mixing was a bit different, if there was more capability to focus on all these cool arpeggios in the background and stuff, the leads would be way less grating. i dont find the stuff the lead plays memorable, which isn't a problem for me, but this would be a lot more engaging a track for me if it wasn't the element demanding my attention.
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This genesis cover of the menu theme i feel like highlights how much the music in this game benefits from different balancing, there's all sorts of details that are interesting that i wish could be focused on, other than the layers that are beaten into your head with a base ball bat. Savaged Regime's cover re-balances everything so the wealth of different layers all become equal options for demand on attention to listening to and i think it really pays off. This isn't just me liking fm synth more than modern production either (i actually wouldn't say i do anymore), but it's all about the forcefulness in which you're expected to pay attention to a given layer. Savaged Regime's cover gives you a lot more freedom to decide which element in the track is most interesting to you and worthy of your attention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8i7YQKq_NU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tacS8cLKtc
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-{i did not expect to write that much about "fuse man"}-

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