Track 18: I Am (Boss Battle: Pied) [Two Thousand and Thirteenth January Mix] [from "From Dreams to Nightmares Early Works"]
Artist: Takayuki Mitsuyoshi
Originally Composed: 2013
The From Dreams To Nightmares project could arguably be considered my magnum opus, and is something I have been very slowly chipping away at over the last couple of years, both out in the open and behind the scenes. At one point, a majority of the music I made was FDTN music, but that was back in the days I was adamant that it HAD to be game, and I HAD to make it as soon as possible. Those days had passed even around the time I started working on this song, and that I worked on this song at all when I did was more of a split second, go-with-the-flow idea; I knew I wanted to practise orchestral/electronic fusions, as I’d toyed with them before was never really satisfied with the results, and I knew I wanted something that was big, dramatic, had organs and sounded demented and melancholic for the first half of the final confrontation with the story's main villain, Pied, and I knew I wanted to work on something at least partially inspired by “Toccata & Fugue” (
www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4JQZb83oCc), which I’m sure you’ll be surprised to hear is my favourite piece of classical music, and Nobuo Uematsu’s “Dancing Mad” (
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbXVNKtmWnc), which you’ll ALSO no doubt be surprised to hear is my favourite song in the Final Fantasy Franchise; the song just kind of spawned out of a perfect storm of those urges all colliding at roughly the same time. With the benefit of hindsight I of course feel I could do the idea more justice these days- a bit more beat variation, more moments of the Organ on its own, more clashing and changing between acoustics and electrics, and a much better implementation of Pied’s leitmotif- but I’m still really impressed with the initial attempt here. This was one of the best orchestra-meets-electronica fusions I’d done up to this point, the arrangement changes up and switches around quite nicely as is, and it does capture the emotions I wanted to quite nicely. Just means the next go around, I have to do even better.