Pairing XV (B)

Listen to the tracks and make your selection.

Download Links:

024 Genji — A Message in Mind
233 Guild Wars — Crystal Oasis

I was surprised by the orchestration of Genji — A Message in Mind--with a name like that, I expected another pseudo-Asian yawnfest. As it turns out, while there are definite Oriental influences in some of the fiddle and percussion, the track is orchestral through and through. It seems like it's building up to something--that great crescendo at the end--but the journey takes too long and the payoff is ultimately not worth the wait.

My #3 nomination, Guild Wars — Crystal Oasis is a different kind of orchestration altogether. It has much more of a new age feel, and is essentially a combination of Jeremy Soule's bag of ambient tricks with a strong, rising melody. The instrument choice makes the piece seem mystical, magical, and it gradually builds in intensity. Definitely an album, if not a career, highlight.

My vote, predictibly enough, is for my nomination.

I continue to think Crystal Oasis is a total snoozefest. Wishy-washy melodic attempts over a droning ostinato. To call it a highlight of anything would be a massive insult to its composer.

A Message in Mind is good, but it doesn't have to be to win this pairing. It simply has to exist.

I really like Soule's work in general and Guild Wars has some wonderful pieces, this included. But alas, Message in Mind is very, very rousing and wonderful and is definitely getting my vote here.

I'm not sure I'm crazy about either track. One's dull in a lazy way. The other's dull in a steady, rigid way.

But "Message In Mind" has more going on throughout and the instrumentation is better overall.

I'll go with Genji and hope that it's pit against something stronger in the next round.

Crystal Oasis is simply beautiful. Easy vote.

Message has an obnoxious intro, builds a nice melody and then goes into Generic Booming Climax mode for the remainder.

Crystal Oasis on the other hand, is nicely understated, flows well, and has a very pretty melody. So I have a message for Message: take your drum and beat it.

Both of these are impressive pieces that set out to obtain an atmospheric and emotional feel. Crystal Oasis doesn't need to weave complexity to be intriguing. It has an ongoing sound of wonderment. If you sit there and analyze it, the track may wear thin, but just kind of unfocus your ears as if you're trying to see the hidden image in one of the three dimensional pictures. A very beautiful piece.

A Message in Mind may have more actual content in this pairing, but it's impact is less. It hits the mark of ominous power but in a more generic way. Both winners, my votes going to Oasis for doing slightly more with less.

Message in mind is awesome, with an epic touch between east and west. Too bad the game sucked, with that ost
Crystal Oasis is one of the most intense Soule's work, not exactly epic like the rest of his work but more intimate and emotional.
That's a very difficult choice, but I guess my vote will go to the most complex track, Genji's one...

The Genji track is like a really awesome book that ends on a cliffhanger - right before the climax. It spends the whole song building, and building, and making me love it... and then, when it should be exploding outwardin some amazing climatic ending, it just kinda... stops. Leaves me hanging. I wouldn't care at all if the rest of the track wasn't so great, but it is. It does such a good job of building itself up.

So much so that I have to vote for it even with the dissapointing ending.

A Message in Mind
The beginning with those percussive hits and aggressive shouts, is a revealing prelude to the posterior development of this oriental-ish track. There is nothing innovative about this track, just it recycles the oriental musical stereotypes without any creativity. The in crescendo structure isn't enough to redeem the lacking of inspiration of this work.

Crystal Oasis
Maybe my favorite one from the preliminaries. On the contrary that its rival, this piece has unique qualities which are very hard to find. It's amazing how through simple composition, Soule evokes such ethereal atmosphere. It almost seems like a brilliant dream in the eternity, just like the perception of the metaphysical realm (I'm not drugged, I promise you).

Genji — A Message in Mind
I really liked this track, as it was really able to articulate itself nice. The rich percussion, driving orchestral melody and great melodic build all influence the amount of musical (and emotional) impact this piece manages to put out.

Crystal Oasis
A warm ambient piece by Soule turned out to be one of the more memorable tracks from this album. The melody is very understated, which only adds to the depth of the ambient portion of the piece. Sadly, Gengi was the superior track by comparison.

024 Genji — A Message in Mind
233 Guild Wars — Crystal Oasis

Oh, Genji. I always wanted to play this game, but it's some 7.2 GB torrent! A Message in Mind is pretty good, but I picture it's better in game. The Guild Wars track is just totally beautiful. It sounds like Gothic 2 soundtrack, and that's always a good thing. Might also be better in game, but definitely my choice here.

: 233 Guild Wars — Crystal Oasis
: 024 Genji — A Message in Mind

Orchestratin' vs. ... orchestratin'. A Message in Mind has a direction. Crystal Oasis has the pretty. WITH THEIR POWERS COMBINED, we might actually have a track worth listening to again. Since this is not the case, vote goes to Crystal Oasis because I enjoyed listening to it ever so slightly more. Maybe its laziness resonated with me.

Genji - A Message in Mind starts promising, sounds like a track from the Shenmue 2 OST ( which isn't a bad thing ) and stays interesting thoroughly. Despite the fact, that the composer didn't want to create something innovative and new, the track does a good job at being a solid orchestral track, which has some nice eastern influences. By comparison, Guild Wars - Crystal Oasis definitely is another sort of an orchestral track, but sadly I can't really get into it. The melody isn't that striking and overall the track is a little bit too dull, even though I've listened to it about ten times.

1st: Genji - A Message in Mind
2nd: Guild Wars - Crystal Oasis

Very fond of both of these pieces. In the end though, going to cast a vote for Message in Mind due to its orchestral prowess and emotional involvement.

Crystal Oasis is Jeremy Soule and GORGEOUS.

Message in Mind is all foreplay, no ejaculation.


Crystal Oasis gets the vote for not giving blueballs.

A Message in Mind - This seems to be the standard dramatic orchestral flare with a somewhat decent melody, but not as developed as some of the other ones that I've heard.

Crystal Oasis - Ambience with some melody to it. The atmosphere it creates is great though. I didn't vote for it in the preliminaries as I didn't think it was that good, and I'm not going to do so here.

So, Message gets my vote.

I could honestly live without both of these...Crystal Oasis is more or less what I'd expect from Soule, Message in Mind is something I'd expect from an overblown movie/game about samurais that is easily forgotten.

Message isn't quite as good as the Shin Onimusha track in one of the other pairings, but it's enough to win here. The melody is generally decent and so is the percussion. Soule doesn't have a very high batting average on my stat sheet and him being himself isn't going to raise it.