LogFAQs > #963871849

34st
Game: Shining the Holy Ark *Remix
Title: The Dance of Light and Death
Composer: Motoi Sakuraba
Nominator: @azuarc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ2wX2H1h1Q

For some reason I expected I'd have to make a lengthy timesig chart out here but it seems that this song is just:
(0:00 - 2:53) all 5/8
(2:53 - 3:51) all 4/4
(3:51 - 5:45) all 5/8
(5:45 - ) all 4/4

Though it still keeps itself rhythmically obfuscated through things like the crazy triplet drum fills and unusual accent patterns. I actually had a hard time telling which timesig it went into when the 4/4 first showed up, because of the accent pattern keeping a heavy hit on the 4th beat (made me think of the heavy hit as the start of the next bar), and it coming right after a very long portion of entirely clear 5---your mind (or at least mine) doesn't instantly jump to 4 when that section ends, making it hard for at least me to initially grasp whenever this happens...which I think is cool!

So if you don't know. There is a musical injoke sorta like "the lick" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krDxhnaKD7Q] ...

...AHEM there is a musical injoke in certain vgm circles called "cumshot", and well...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCuN-su_moE

(huge special thanks to sergio for compiling a list for me of almost all of those examples)

This song is not exactly that. But it is pretty close which is all it needs to be...and VERY repeatedly, and I definitely can't help but smile whenever those portions of the lead play. in fact of every cited 'cumshot' example that i know of, this shining the holy ark one is the one that's just, the most insistent on repeating it to the point it's one of the main hooks of the tune! Really this isn't a factor in my enjoyment in any way other than amusement of it accidentally being part of an in-joke that didn't exist until significantly after this song was released, but it's fun, and honestly...? as a hook, those notes work really well for it...

Motoi Sakuraba was maybe my first "favorite vgm composer". I hadn't really experienced the feeling until my friend shared with me music from Valkyrie Profile which I pretty quickly got obsessed with. I was shocked when I noticed it was the same composer as one of my long-time favorites (Mario Golf Toadstool Tour). And more importantly, I could TELL. This same musician injected his very distinct flavor into two soundtracks I wholeheartedly loved. It made me decide to check out his other work, first thing I checked was Golden Sun and pretty instantly it was clear: definitely the same person who wrote these two soundtracks I already love, some songs really felt like they could've been in valkyrie profile or mario golf in an alternate universe! so, unsurprisingly I loved this too! I just kept going with listening to his stuff until I'd listened to the majority of his available stuff at the time.

Ever since then, I've payed a lot of special attention to the composer of any game I enjoy the music to. Since chances are, if I like one thing they've done, there's more gems to come. It reshaped my entire pattern of vgm listening. I used to go by series of games id played or wanted to play. But now, if I like one song by a vgm composer enough, my first instinct is to binge listen to every single soundtrack they have even one credit on (which would cause me to discover other composers they've worked with, to love, and keep branching in chain of association paths until I listen to every vgm song...). And honestly I have found more music i love this way than any other way I've tried to discover music I'd enjoy. So Sakuraba is very important to me for this reason!

Why I like Sakuraba? Theres a lot of reasons I guess. The obvious one is that he is "prog" and I mean EXACTLY sounds like the most iconic 1970s prog bands when he's going for at least the style he goes for in this song. I wasn't actually as familiar as i am now in "progressive rock (genre of REAL MUSIC)" until years after I already loved Sakuraba. But it made it pretty easy to get into his arrange albums like this one he made for Shining the Holy Ark when I found them! I think I like him a lot more than most actual 70s prog bands too. He sounds exactly like them, but he goes way more all out in terms of fixation on timesig stuff and all that.

[kinda like the whole conversation i had about dream theater above---Sakuraba is maybe like the "dream theater" of "music that sounds like 70s prog" (except it was made in 2005 or whatever), at least when he's going for this style. very very focused on intentionally jumpy feeling odd time to an extent of intensity that wasn't actually usually taken that far at all in the 70s]

The maybe less obvious reason for my fascination with Sakuraba is I actually like his melodic style a LOT. really my answer to why i like it is basically "it sounds epic", ;epic; like, heroic powering-though-the-darkness melodies about fulfilling your DESTINY as the chosen one to save the planet. it's a cliche, maybe, but i've always liked it. but the thing is sakuraba's way of approaching that is...ridiculously distinct? like even if the desired emotion is common: the way he approaches this stuff, most big vgm fans can point to and be like "oh, yep, this is motoi sakuraba alright" within 5 seconds. It's hard to point to exactly every trait, but it's basically he just has some specific chord change patterns that no one else really does but him...and just weaves his melodies around chords in particular ways, etc. i also have always appreciated how almost folk-like his melody style is. I get a big kick out of 3:51 in The Dance of Light and Death in particular, because it takes what was originally very much synthy prog rock, but changes that into like "tavern in fantasy castle world" on harpsichord and other OLD PEOPLE instruments. and man that is just so cool. You GGo do that motoi sakuraba, i love that you are this way so much