Ever since serving as an IGF audio jurist many moons ago and having pre-release exposure to Bastion, I've scooped up the soundtracks of Supergiant Games' modern troubadour Darren Korb, so it's a treat to finally have a fresh tribute to Korb's music from Pyre by prophetik music & Geoffrey Taucer, who last collabed in a featured ReMix many moons ago as well! In the midst of developing this one, proph moved past mulish mediocrity by sprinking some Taucer-dust on things:

"i love darren korb's OSTs, but pyre's been a special one for me just because of how evocative the world of the game is. i set in to arrange this track with a focus on the simple melody, and tried to stay really understated with the initial approach. i got something together by around august of 2024, but really felt it was very blah and lacking something that'd set it apart from the original. i was exploring a few concepts around this time and eventually asked taucer to contribute banjo on a "rootsy, quiet remix" for me - he was easily the first choice in my mind when i decided to seek out a collab partner. due to some personal stuff, we spent most of a year bouncing ideas around while he moved and did a bunch of other stuff. when we got back to it, though, taucer came after it with a vengeance from a variety of instruments. we also added a bridge and i recorded some saxophone, and then we shot a hundred wips back and forth until we settled on what we have here.

from a technical side, i used a bunch of Omnisphere guitars and pads, Addictive Drums for the drums, and my garage-sale tenor for the sax parts. mix is mostly FL plugins with Guitar Rig 5 and Gullfoss. the project file has about 10hrs on it, mostly from 8/2024 and earlier when i was first trying to make it work with synth leads.

the title is a standalone version of a line from the song's vocal line."

We closed out last year with Taucer ringing in ReMix #5000, and he's been a paragon of productivity since reorganizing his space. When he and his wife visited me recently, we and pixelseph indulged in conveyor belt sushi, and I even got to hear his high-quality Chrono Cross guitar WIP firsthand, so stay tuned for more! With a planned out physical space leading to right headspace, Taucer was a house afire, blazing forth with LOTS of instrumentation ideas:

"Can I just say I love working with prophetik? The way we both approach remixing just seems to work so well together, and I always have a blast working with him.

Anyway, IIRC, when he originally sent me a WIP, he was just asking for banjo. As soon as I heard it, I immediately thought it would benefit from some bluesy slide guitars, which was mostly new territory to me. But the melody lends itself extremely well to a sort of dusty folk blues feel.

The whole thing got put on hold for a few months while I moved to another state; the plus side of this move, however, was that at the other end of it I had -- for the first time in about a decade and a half -- a dedicated recording space with all my instruments and gear together in the same room. So, I used this mix to put the new studio through its paces, and ended up using more individual instruments than I've ever used on a single track before. The full count is 7 instruments: 3 different electric guitars, an Irish bouzouki, a banjo (played clawhammer-style), a 12-string acoustic, and an amped 6-string acoustic."

As a chronic procrastinator, sometimes a good thing can't be rushed but winds up worth the wait. Kudos to the bros for giving Korb's melancholic, guitar-centric theme an inspyred [sic] interpretation with saxy swagger and strangy, twangy panache!