LogFAQs > #962866187

66nd
Game: Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Title: Ripple Star
Composer: Jun Ishikawa
Nominator: @DoctorJimmy133
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtlAGw0wWKI

since the original video was taken down and this is a "sample-based chiptune" i took the liberty of uploading a visualizer as the yt vid link here!

kirby : ) this song is so happy!!!!!!!!!! I told you that kirby is an example of a rare exception of where i actually like happy music~! (this song is not happy)

i actually find this song very difficult to position (this could've easily wound up as low as 200 if in a different mood than i was when i made this topic, you're lucky that it got this high in my initial ranking and i'm not sure it'd stay this high when i re-rank)

it's because it's a type of "dissonant jazz" that i associate less with the type of "dissonant jazz" that i really like (and associate actually more with more traditional older jazz that i have a lot of bad memories of involvement with from when being a live jazz musician was more of a part of my life)...like the sorta dissonant jazz i'm most into is more like modern fusion bands like chick corea elektric band or tribal tech. this sounds like legit could be '40s rapidly swung stuff, just one of the more crazy incarnations of it. and like, i DO like that type of music, but i think pre-1970 i'm more inclined to pick avant-garde classical than avant-garde jazz as far as what i'm excited about in terms of developments. the other part of that is also i do feel like some elements here feel a bit stilted BUT

i "say" that, but that's mostly because of like...dumb association, "oh no, swing is the type of jazz i dont like as much as funky fusion, and the people who like it don't like funky modern fusion so they HATE me", but like honestly? this is one of my favorite songs from the 60s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiOf7oZnlP4

so yeaah, i like this style, i may have awkward associations with the older and more traditional side of jazz from when i was a "jazz", but when i divorce myself from that negative associative context, this style is good. especially when it shows what makes this style FUN, just like, the freedom to descend into total insanity. there's nothing "restrained" about this song, which is what ironically bothered me about the way uptight older people approached older jazz (to quote shnabubula: "managed to turn the musical expression of freedom into a prison elaborately disguised as a luxury spa"). this does NOT have that problem, but there's a lot of similar stuff that would. but this song doesn't feel like it has any limits. i mean it has the limits of n64 sound limitations, it sounds fake, but there's plenty of vgm jazz that Actually Sounds Fake with no care made to make it feel as alive with ghost notes and stuff. this sounds like it's at least trying as hard as it can to imitate the feeling of real musicians playing instruments and that's something i respect whenever i see it. it sounds like everyone playing is HAVING FUN in the CRAZY PINK SCENARIO

the channel visualizer reveals some interesting things to me; i used to assume that the synth chord at :43 was like a dance music chord sample, but it's actually all written out every note there. you can see it's even cooler than that, i love being able to see the manual panning in 3 positions too: all notes in the chord to left, all notes in chord to the right, and the mixture of both. also it's not often that a jazz solo is something you just get to very clearly see a transcription right in front of you like that as it's playing, and i have a lot of fun watching exactly what notes are being played and how they relate to each other and everything else around. unlike watson's stuff, i don't get the sense these are actually live though, it sounds more like a manually typed out imitation of "what a solo might sound like"

strangely the most "obviously not supposed to be a live improvised solo" line (1:26) is the one that feels the most similar to something i'd expect to hear in a live solo, but it's obviously NOT something that would be if this were performed, because it's a flute synchronized to the acoustic bass! that's probably my favorite part of the song, it works great as a climax to the insanity, earlier parts are very dissonant but in more familiar ways or ways that are easier to pick apart (or at least, parts of the song that have other layers that are more graspable as an alternate position to place your focus), but that part just blasts you with incomprehensibility and i love that, and the position in the song it places itself in with it as the climax

and like, this fits PERFECTLY with the image of the insanity of Kirby's World. i dont actually know the context of this song but i assume it's like, very fast paced movement across a chaotic cartoon landscape. it reminds me a lot of CARTOON music too, again, an older image but one i've been less personally burned by. instead i get the crazy chaos of a rube golberg machine of slapstick surrealism visualized in my head