The main reason for my absence is that I've been concentrating on doing 
original music, and non-RPG remixes recently. I haven't really felt the urge 
to do any RPG remixes...

Also, I've never been a great fan of RPGs, or their music - I just loved FF7 
and its soundtrack...the fact that it's shunned as a crap FF soundtrack by 
millions of narrow-minded RPG addicts has made me lose respect for what I've 
figured to be the general crowd of RPGamer.

The other part of the losing-respect-for-the-crowd is the whole FF9 
soundtrack thing...in FF7 & 8, Nobuo tried being vaguely creative. As a 
result, the soundtracks flopped. So with FF9, we get a 'return to form' 
soundtrack, and it does great.

Return to form. Those are three of my most hated words in the English 
language. What it means is that the artist is forced to stop developing, and 
rehash old styles, just cuz it's what the public wants, and the public can't 
be fucked perservering with the music to hear what can only be an 
improvement on previous works...

It happened to the Smashing Pumpkins when they made "Adore", REM when they 
made "Up"...and it tried to happen to Radiohead when they did "Kid A", only 
they had the guts to keep making what they WANT to make, not what they're 
forced to.

As a result, FF9 is just an attempt at remaking the FF4 & 6 soundtracks, and 
it's shit. Terrible. Emotionless. There's a reason why there are over six 
CDs worth of music; and it's because creating the songs can't have taken 
longer than four minutes each. I know this just sounds like vitriol, but 
it's what I believe. Every song I have heard from the FF9 soundtrack (I'll 
grant that I've only heard 5 or 6, and have no intention of playing the game 
or listening to more of the soundtrack) has just been generic RPG music, and 
not even decent generic RPG music. Anyone could've done it. A blatant waste 
of Nobuo.

Anyway. I'll continue with my explanation.

I used to do heaps of RPG songs, I'll grant you that - that was because I 
saw that there was a 'market' for them, and got a bit carried away. It 
seemed to be much easier to get people to listen to my remixes than it was 
to get them to listen to my originals, so I used my RPG songs as a crutch, 
of sorts...

Now I'm more interested in making the music I want; I don't give a damn what 
people want to hear. Sure, if someone specifically asks me to do a remix of 
a song, and asks nicely, it's very likely that I'll do it, providing I at 
least halfway like the original, but mainly I'm gonna do what I want.

Oh, and there are a couple of other reasons:

a) I was really pissed off when I saw what Matt did with my Sound Quality 
hints...I spent quite a lot of time writing that, and Matt assured me that 
he'd read through it, reformat it, and link to a couple of pictures, but 
instead just posted the plain vanilla .txt file, with my side notes and 
formatting instructions still intact.

b) I don't like the lack of any room for artists to put their own comments 
with their songs...instead, we get a brief semi-review, which is usually 
just a vague, vague description of the song. "I haven't heard the original, 
but I think that this is K'korloch's Theme. Has what could be a harp."

c) I also don't like the site's newfound association/obsession with 
deathmetal. But I can live with it. :)

Anyway, there you are. They're the main reasons I haven't been giving 
anything to you guys at RPGamer...

If you want, I've got heaps and heaps of older remixes and retracks that I 
could start gradually submitting to you every week to keep you happy.

And I will do some more FF7 & 8 (maybe even some earlier FF) remixes 
sometime soon...I've also taken a shine to what I've heard of the Chrono 
Cross soundtrack...and I think Castlevania SOTN is officially an RPG; it has 
decent music; I think I'll do some stuff from that.

Yeah. Anyway. I'm sorry I disappeared like I did, but I was never any more 
than an e-mail away...and I honestly thought I was considered 'just another 
random remixer' and no-one would especially care. Feels quite nice to be 
proved wrong. :)

~Gwilym