Song of the Week 25: 'One Girl in All The World' by The Wingless

I can't believe I haven't covered this track yet for Song of the Week, but I'm finally getting around to it now. This is the track that brought me to OCR back in 2005 (I lurked until '08) and it's had me hooked ever since. I found this track originally when doing a Google search for Super Metroid music or remixes, something like that. So I came up with One Girl In All The World by The Wingless and I loved it so much that I posted 5 OCR track links to my blog when I started it (that would be March of '06 I believe). The links are dead now after djp made some host changes and I never bothered to correct them because that blog is no longer public, but regardless OCR has made a significant impact on my life and it all started with this track. Speaking of the Wingless, I haven't seen him around OCR in quite a while. In fact I just checked his forum profile and it says no activity since 4/16/2010. From what I've seen, The Wingless makes fantastic works of art in the musical field and this goes all the way back to One Girl In All The World's posting date: 10/2/2003. Anyway, I should get down to the actual mix...

The ironic thing about this track is that when I first listened to it often, I couldn't figure out the source tune. Granted, I've never played Super Metroid, but I've heard the source tune in gameplay videos and through many other remixes; this is certainly unorthodox. The track slowly fades in with thunder and rain effects with a single piano note being tapped lightly (that's an E flat). The atmosphere is a good set up for the piano breakout at 0:14. This is an unorthodox sounding piece already to my ears and 0:25 expands the piano with a synth added this time that floats up and plays in tandem with the piano. At 0:36 you've got a subtle pulsing bass that gives the piece more feel. It's a very nice, repetitive groove that enthralls the listener (or at least me). At 0:59 the piece seems to "take off" (remember, I'm writing this from what I feel and think, this is by no means what your opinion should or will be). We've now an abundance of synths with some single note piano support. There's also a subtle synth like choir at 1:05 that took me a while to catch. A synth melody is established and it joins the piano rhythm/melody at 1:09 to form sort of counter melody/melody/harmony thing (I'm not a music expert). A second later (1:10) you've got some reinforcing synth acting as a two note bass. You can really see this track start to come together. 1:21 expands the track with a cymbal that introduces atmospheric effects really giving the track it's superb and flexible feel. Of course there's also the percussion stuff going on now, it sounds like hi-hat more than snare brushes; I wouldn't know, but it's a well employed sample. There's a brief pause at 1:31 when the piano comes down to continue the motif already established. This track really flows through everything, I mean a lot; there's a lot of transitions and changes among the seemingly repetitive motifs. 1:42 ends another cycle with the piano that comes down and now we're introduced to a slower part with a synth lead and piano bass. This is the part where I finally caught onto the "Oh this is Red Brinstar" (the piano bass gave it away). This is fantastic, it feels very loose, but it's held together by awesome atmosphere, superb piano interweaving with the synth, and a general feeling of peace. Also notice the subtle string introduction. It expands at 2:12 becoming more active with piano background, but still retaining the peaceful feel. It becomes more profound now especially starting at 2:18 like it wants to go somewhere, but it's having trouble despite its honest trying. It trails off with a held piano note and the string to near silence at 2:30. The piano pops back in a second later with the beginning of a now familiar motif. Now you can really hear it coming together and the piano gets all showy like it's realizing this track is going to work. 2:43 adds in the two note bass we've heard before that has great reinforcement. A whistle synth lead is added at 2:44 that seems to bring everything we've heard before together. This track seems to speak for itself in an innocent "Hey I figured this out." manner. It leaves us trailing off again at 2:52, but this time on a positive note that seems to say that this trick worked before. The low range string stuff really helps in this section (which is where I'd consider the most coherent and cohesive part is) and it seems to say "so now..." which starts a new story. This is incredibly well woven and it's mesmerizing. At 3:17 it changes keys and keeps the awesomeness going. Now you can hear the lead in the source tune played by the lead synth. I seriously didn't recognize this the first time I heard it and it probably had to do with the mesmerizing piano always going on. The final expansion is at 3:41 which adds the strings in a more prominent manner with cymbal crashes that really create more of a waves on the shore sort of sound. It trails off again at 4:03 and you can hear it start to dissolve now as it nears its end. It seems like the track found its place in this world, or a world for a place. It fades out to end. I fear I haven't really justified this piece's awesomeness in my little writeup hear, djp and the forum goers at OCR do it much better (so check that out here). This is the first song I ever heard from OCR, and I believe it's one of the best I've ever heard to date.

Pros: Mesmerizing flow, piano work, synth work, just about everything. I feel extremely under qualified to review this so just listen to it and decide for yourself.

Cons: None. I can't think of anything that could've made this better.

Overall: The Wingless is talented beyond belief. What else can I say? Awesome.

Rating: 9.9/10