Renaissance/chamber-style bits trade bars with giant, waltz-march bombast, the choral elements bring additional gravitas, and there's a good blend of solo & ensemble writing tying everything together. A live orchestral performance of this arrangement would obviously be powerful, but Glyn's rendering & skillful use of some very solid sample libraries like Metropolis make this no slouch on the production front, achieving the intended dramatic effect through superb dynamic contrast & vast, sweeping instrumentation. RIP Rexy's in the UK and yeah, that would have been a fantastic event. It's an overall beautiful package that would make Ben Daglish proud if he was still with us today!' Even in a synthetic orchestra setting, every instrument contributed beautiful articulations, the mixing is clean, and I can identify all parts within the soundscape. Firelord is a more simple BGM from that home computer, and yet Glyn took its nature and developed it across varying moods with a well-sculpted dynamic framework. I keep hearing about how much dedication and passion there was to not only the symphonic performances of C64 music, but also the arrangements that supported them. 'Thanks for reminding me that I should've been at the 8-Bit Symphony debut concert at Hull last year.

Good news is, either way it's great Rexy writes:

elaborate symphonic arrangement of *just* the intro from Seal's hit.

This theme has a strong 'Kiss From A Rose' energy, at least for me - obviously Daglish came first, but I could almost see Glyn's mix as this. Galaheart is the name of the character in the game, apparently. I think I used Metropolis Ark 1 choirs (Men + Women) & Aurora Choir by Aria Sounds. This version had to be written to work & be played live by a real 80-piece orchestra for Chris Abbott's 8-Bit Symphony. Original 8-bit SID tune composed by Ben Daglish. 'Orchestral remake from the 1986 Commodore 64 game Firelord by Hewson. Glyn R Brown is a newcomer to OCR but has been making amazing C64 arrangements for 15+ years, and we're thrilled to be featuring this epic orchestral take on Ben Daglish's main theme from Firelord:

Brass: metropolis ark 1