Beneath the Surface - Octopath Traveler (violin/cello/piano cover ft. Israfelcello, Patti Rudisill)

OKAY!!! It only took us about three years OTL but it's finally done lmao!!! Not my first Octopath cover (check @israfelcello's channel for those, we did a whole album two years ago!) but the first one on my channel and we're so proud of it!!! 😀😀😀

So of course when Octopath Traveler dropped in 2018 it was a day one purchase for me--the nostalgic 2D pixel visuals, the turn-based combat, the job and skills combo customizations were a blast, such a fun, tight RPG experience as to be expected from the Bravely Default team, though I would have preferred a more cohesive overarching story, but it wasn't a deal breaker. Yasunori Nishiki's OST though, absolutely blew me away, it was just so unexpectedly beautiful in an old school melodic kind of way, and for sure i was far from the only one who could hear so many arrangement possibilities for potential covers lol!! The dungeon/sewer theme, Beneath the Surface, was one of my favorites and pretty much had @Israfelcello written all over it, so it was something we were pretty much legally required to do lol.

As usual Andrew and I ping ponged the arrangement, sending drafts back and forth and expounding on each other's ideas, though I sat on my end for an extremely long time because i was so dissatisfied with my work I rewrote it like five or six times until I got the piano part sounding somewhat decent, mainly just trying to make the repeat of the theme different and interesting the second time around. I am so pleased Andrew gets to showcase his incredible skills even more with a little mini quasi cadenza thing near the end hahaha!! Also as per usual, Patti always feels like the missing piece to the puzzle, just perfectly complementing us all with her gorgeous, sensitive, impeccable playing. Both of them absolutely crushed this!!!! During the mixing process I was like MOAR STRINGS as I was turning the piano down lower and lower lol, they just sounded so, SO amazing, I could listen to them forever gahhhhhh.

The beautiful album art of Therion was done by Suneia (@suneiaaa on Twitter) who captured his vibe perfectly!!! ❤️❤️❤️ And goes up on all streaming services tomorrow because I got all confused with daylight savings time when I scheduled it so lmao I'll make an announcement tomorrow whoops

EDIT 11/12/21!!! NOW LIVE!! Stream or download: https://lnk.to/5Xvbcnxc

Cello: ‪@IsrafelCello‬
Violin: ‪@viopatti‬
Piano: me!