Xenogears Light

Xenogears Light - The Xenogears fan album

Mustin (his whole name), front-man behind the band The One Ups, and a fantastic musician in his own right – has professed to me that he’s a fan of The Wingless. At the time, I was incredulous that anyone could like-like my music. But Mustin always backed up his fanboyism with the gold-standard of CDs, concerts, good friends, good times… And collaboration on an Album: Xenogears Light.

At the time, I remember feeling like The Wingless – the musical entity – had sound music making skills. But my audio mastering was comparatively wretched. Full stop. After telling Mustin this, he laughed and said I could arrange it and he’d work his magic on it. In essence, I sent him the midi of the whole song and the band (no seriously, check them out, they’re so good) took care of the rest.

What pleased me the most about the project wasn’t just the relative ease, it was the end result. Huge parts of my work remain intact, namely the dreamy motif you hear when the band improvises. To me, it’s doubly impressive to hear the band careen around the basic framework I developed. It’s like setting a stage and watching as other people put on a play. Fantastic stuff to send out a cocktail napkin scribbling and get back a painting.

Xenogears Light not only represents the miracle of cutting an album from a thousand miles away – but also my first commercially published song. Nevertheless, the work was all pro-bono (anything for a fan). I would later collaborate on the Super Metroid Reserve Tank project, but that was more a rush-order and wholly made by me.

 

Credits

  • Mustin: project Lead, piano, acoustic bass guitar
  • John Burnett: arrangement
  • Jared Dunn: bongos
  • Greg Kennedy: violin
  • Anthony Lofton: soprano sax
  • Christian Pacaud: acoustic bass guitar
  • Jessica Perkins and Nastassja Riley: flute
  • William Reyes and Tim Yarbrough: acoustic guitar

Curation

  • 2005 . Millennial Age