One listen, and here I swerved off a bit, though maybe it doesn’t seem like it. I think it’d be better to say that I swerved away from how I wanted to write, but that doesn’t matter too much anyway as I think the result works well enough,

This song doesn’t go for the sweeping and dramatic, or at least blatant dramatic, and perhaps it’s unfair to say that Yasunori Nishiki does that dramatic moment a lot. Perhaps. I realised during the listening of the soundtrack this song is from that it feels really long, probably because it’s a little over seven hours, but it feels long well before reaching the end. That is a lot of music to compose and I respect the commitment to the work, but I don’t think the album makes for a good listening experience unless you break it down into parts.

Yasunori Nishiki’s (西木 康智) “Gloomy Grotto” (“仄暗き洞窟”) is from Octopath Traveler II‘s soundtrack, Octopath Traveler II Original Soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy.

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Low and seemingly murky notes, though perhaps they’re just, and only, quiet.
Keys are deep and the woodwind plays with a gentle waft, whilst strings pluck carefully.

Soon the strings replace the woodwind and stir and spread. A glittering of percussion briefly heard whilst the strings play through this stuffy space.

The unease lifts to focus on keys and light percussion for a moment, and the space is still whilst the moment holds here. Then it returns to the downbeat stuffiness.

And perhaps that’s the best way to describe this, as it does sound stuffy, as though the space has remained untouched for a long time and it has not had much circulation of what we think of as fresh.

So the strings stir once more, but they hang low to the ground, and they once more had followed the woodwind, and that unease remains, and once more it lifts when the moment focuses on the keys and percussion, and it seems it’s a glimmer of light before returning to the dark, where the sounds fade and the song ends.