PRODUCTION

Describe the recruitment process for this album?

Joe: We have a formal track proposal process where members pitch one or more ideas for how they would produce a track, and then we approve members for specific tracks before any music production work actually begins. It’s a tricky process because we always get tons of great ideas, but we can’t approve everything, or the album would be 2 to 3 times longer than the final product. When selecting which tracks to approve, we’re trying to balance the goals of inclusivity (distributing opportunities to both new and old members alike), the consumer’s listening experience, and fitting in unique ideas/styles that you otherwise wouldn’t expect.

After that, we leave it open to the track producers to decide who they would like to recruit as recording musicians. The selection procedure for recording musicians can vary from producer to producer. Sometimes, producers have specific musicians in mind that they would like to work with, and other times, producers will use Materia Collective’s internal social media channels to find musicians for their track.

Did you have quality control or a check-in process?

Emily: Yes, every album has a check-in process so we can make sure the tracks are on target for the final deadline. This helps the track producers keep their track production moving forward in a timely process, and also helps the album producers stay tuned in with what the tracks are sounding like. We try very hard to let track producers flesh out their own visions for their tracks; however, because this is under the Materia Collective label, and because album directors always have some vision of their own, occasionally we’ll need to request adjustments to tracks along the way. Check-ins help us prevent someone completing an entire track before we find something that needs to be modified, which is a massive pain for everyone involved.

They proposed a jazz arrangement of “The Final Battle”, and we thought, okay, we have no idea what this’ll end up like, but let’s try it.

How did you arrange an album of this size with so many genres of music?

Joe: The credit for the genre variety on the album goes to our members! They are usually the ones who come up with crazy or interesting ideas. We always get way more proposals than we can accept on these large community albums, and when you get that many proposals, that gives us the flexibility to craft an album with a variety of styles based on which track proposals we approve and reject.

Which tracks surprised you the most?

Joe: “Mysteries of the Marsh” by Earth Kid and Jorito surprised me. The track is based on “Qu’s Marsh”, which was a relatively sparse track driven by timpani and staccato vocals/some electronic elements. “Mysteries of the Marsh” completely flipped the script and turned the theme into a smooth and epic track that takes the listener on an entire mini-arc.

Emily: The surprises are honestly one of my absolute favorite things about these albums—a track proposal includes the artist’s end goal for the track. Sometimes we have a clear sense of how that’ll turn out, and sometimes we don’t, and we accept the proposal because we’re excited and curious to see where it goes. I think ConSoul’s and Thomas Kresge’s arrangement of “The Final Battle” is one of those tracks. They proposed a jazz arrangement of “The Final Battle”, and we thought, okay, we have no idea what this’ll end up like, but let’s try it.

We’d worked with both arrangers in the past and knew that they regularly churned quality content. The end result works shockingly well. The original track is heavy, dramatic, and almost morose at points, but you would never guess that from the arrangement alone. It’s a really, really cool track. (Editor’s Note: I concur whole-heartedly, and this is my favorite track on the album!)

I don’t think there will ever be a project that involves 200 people where at the end of it you think, okay, I’m now a master project management, I have nothing else to learn!

The final few tracks on the album seem to be an audio drama. How did that come about?

Emily: We got a proposal from Jeff Swingle and John Robert Matz about doing an audio drama of “I Want to be your Canary” from Final Fantasy IX. (For those who are unfamiliar with the FFIX, “I Want to be your Canary” is an in-game play that is referenced and performed multiple times throughout the game; the base concept is not unlike Final Fantasy VI’s “Maria and Draco”). We were not able to put together the whole play as a single track, but we agreed to allow them to have multiple tracks that we would then put in sequential order on the album.

Like ConSoul and Thomas Kresge, we had an idea of John Robert’s and Jeff’s past work, having worked with them previously. It’s not that older Materia Collective members get priority on tracks, but when we have track producers propose a more unusual or ambitious arrangement, we do take into account their previous work. They had a number of performers they wanted to work with, and we were confident in their ability to complete it on time, and to a degree that we would be satisfied with. We were very glad to hear the end result! It made for a wonderful natural finisher on the album.

Do you have any personal favorites on the album?

Joe: Andrew, Ruby, and Patti’s piano trio, “Battle 2: Triple Concerto,” is one of my personal favorites because all three musicians on that track are extremely high caliber, and they really went all out with creating an ambitious arrangement. For classical music fans, you can actually hear quotations from the Rachmaninoff #3 and Prokofiev Sinfonia Concertante in the track!

Emily: Oh boy. I have so many that I listen to regularly. One that I really enjoy is Harpsona’s and Psamathes’ arrangement of “Terra”. The second half of that track especially, with vocal line after vocal line being added as the arrangement toys with the source material, just transports me to another place entirely. It’s a beautiful, haunting arrangement of an already amazing track.

Dean Nguyen’s and Justin Levine’s arrangement of “Over the Hill” was another one that I loved. That one kind of came out of left field for me—the original track is great, but not something I often take the time to go back and listen to. Something about their arrangement, however, really captured the warmth of the game to me. I think FFIX is one of the warmest games in the series as it’s all about these characters learning who they are and supporting each other in this kind of existential journey. I just really appreciate the softness of this arrangement, which I think reflects the nature of the game so well.