One listen with a few pauses, as I started thinking about the amount of sections between some of the parts. Threw me off a bit Should’ve kept going, but I didn’t.

I feel like this song alludes to some of the ones from Final Fantasy XIII. I’m not completely certain, but I feel it does. If so, it’s a nice thematic callback in the sense that the past is being recontextualised for something newer without being entirely obvious; at least, in terms of sound, that is.

Masashi Hamauzu’s (浜渦 正志)) “The Soulsong” (“忘却(レテ)の禊”) is from the soundtrack for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII Original Soundtrack. The soundtrack is comprised of compositions from Masashi Hamauzu, Naoshi Mizuta (水田 直志) and  Mitsuto Suzuki (鈴木光人).

—

A droning, firmly of this world, but seemingly pouring out from another. Low, menacing. Something seems to rumble before a bell is struck right at the moment a chorus heralds some sort of terror, or perhaps heavy foreboding.

It comes and goes, and just before each return the rumble beforehand grows in prominence. It’s not long before the drone shifts and the chorus grows quieter, or at least grows from quiet to almost loud. Languidly harp, or at least what seems like harp plays along and through everything, and the atmosphere keeps pressing down and enclosing.

Over time the chorus falls into a murk, and it seems the droning is weakening, and eventually… silence for some brief seconds. From there strings rise on up and seem to reach into memory, though it is vague. They rise and pause, then start descending in parts whilst rising in others, growing faint and fragile, as though fine threads.

Another, more brief pause before the chorus returns and all is grandiose and perhaps haunting, and revealing, and expansive, and most is swept away by a percussive shimmer, leaving lower sounds and spaced percussion to press on forward for another few seconds until the song ends.