LogFAQs > #962951089

63st
Game: Ar tonelico III
Title: METHOD_HYMMELI/.
Composer: HIR
Nominator: @xp1337
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8a4xBISGVQ

I still can't believe there was ever a time where I /wasnt/ a fan of these hymnos gust tracks. Tho that was more just a past sorta accidentally forced fake aversion to vocals based on "most of my favorite music is instrumental so that must mean that i HATE ALL songs with vocals" which was some weird nonsense i had accidentally cornered myself into (i didn't (still don't) know how to enjoy anything without making my entire identity said thing, and 'hating' everything except for that thing, which is why i eventually split into being 11 pokemon so that i could actually like opposing things at the same time for once).

anyways the aversion to vocals at the time was that rather than actually being weirded out by the style specifically. I actually remember thinking it was "cool" even when I didn't like it yet!

Tho I liked instrumental gust as a whole from the beginning

This is a track where the vocals are easily the most interesting element though, so in very glad I can appreciate this now

The drums feel so primal and tribal. The odd time section here is a pretty good showcase on how odd time isn't even "weird", I barely even tell it shifted because I'm just seeing synchronized giant drums being hit in time with them. The 5/8 is a rhythm simple enough to feel more like an elongated or variation of a 6/8 pattern to me, with the way the drums are. It doesn't feel like "6/8 but cut off" it feels like "imaginary culture that sings ancient magic songs in programming languages being /traditional/". And I guess it makes sense with how hymnos is almost certainly Bulgarian influenced
https://youtu.be/hVqrW-fPOQ0

(Insert my often talked about fact that in traditional Bulgarian music odd timesigs are so normal that no one even thinks of them as "odd time". Their version of music workings is just groups of "long" and "short" beat lengths: long being what we'd see as "3" eighths or 16ths, short being interpretable by western theory as "2" eighths or 16ths long. And any combo of 2 and 3 can sound natural, and regularly adding up to things that are not "4/4" )

Anyways . Yeah I like that sound ok. Not just because of liking to analyze (in this song it isn't even particularly stimulating to pick apart), but because the almost percussive vocal sound you get in this brand of gust (or certain types of traditional Bulgarian/etc) just feels so cool and mystical

Even before I knew what ar tonelico was about, when I heard these sorts of sounds i would picture glowing runes making patterns similar to the cool circuit-like hymnnos symbols. It depicts ancient circuitry to me. Or like Unown (pokemon)

Now that I think about it I kinda inverted with my brother. When we were kids HE was the "i am the psychic type gym leader and I know all the secrets of the ancient ruins" and had abra and unown (and 13 mews) and could make objects float in the air with his brain and they would have text that looks like circuit boards glowing around them. These days that aesthetic aligns with my identity way more than his, but I remember when that was his thing and we didn't know as much stuff like this and I think he was really obsessed with like..."the box" by "orbital" to establish such an identity:

https://youtu.be/HhGLWSNlhqQ

He did naturally get into ar tonelico when I introduced it to him after i discovered it on b8 thanks to ALL OF YOU (thank you) back in 2009. But these days this stuff describes my interests more than his now. Not sure why I'm going on this tangent...but I guess mentioning the Orbital - The Box thing is a good way to indicate the tracks that I focused on in the past for painting equivalent imagery. The one thing both have in common: sublte electronic elements piercing through the dominantly natural sound. That's necessary, because those electronic elements mixed with the natural is what represents the "magic". Without the synthetic effects, you are just looking at normal rocks instead

i'm usually impressed by ar tonelico series' music having such a consistent and distinct sound direction that, no matter which outside guest composer they get to write for it, it'll sound undeniably like "ar tonelico" no question, not enough game series have such a tightly defined sound