Duration: 8:37

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4

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNV8cBLgNmU
Download: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ainp6rqa6u1chz9/Layla+-+The+Iris+Missions+OST.zip (includes NSFe, MP3 renders, and the original .it files used to prototype the songs)

0:00 freeBase (Mission 9)
1:33 GHOST (Boss)
2:01 PHANTOM (Final Boss)
2:49 Aristotelian (Ending)
4:03 Iris (B mix) (Credits)
6:58 Koise (Unused)

Comments from the NSFe:

12. freeBase -- Mission 9 theme. This is a remix of the original fortress music from Layla, hence the name. I threw this together very quickly at the end of development ("very quickly" by my standards -- 4-5 hours to write and 6-7 to program for the driver), but I think it turned out nicely for it. The polyrhythmic parts were fun.

13. GHOST -- Boss theme. This sounded better before I had to cut everything out of it, but it's far better than having no boss music at all (which was the plan before I discovered a tiny bit of code in the interrupt handler that isn't used during normal gameplay).

14. PHANTOM -- Final boss theme. I wrote this little riff and thought about expanding it into a full song, but when it turned out there wasn't room for it anyways, I just left it at this. The loop point on this track is mathematically correct for the out-of-sync pulse width changes. Also features the only appearance of the "auto-noise" mode the sound driver provides, whose mechanica I still don't understand.

15. Aristotelian -- Ending theme. I figured I should do at least one song with a proper bassline just to prove I can, since almost everything else is in octaves and fifths to allow efficient pattern recycling.

16. Iris (B mix) -- Credits theme. One day I was watching TV and something came on about some baseball player whose name had "Axel" in it, and I suddenly realized I couldn't remember the hook to Axel F. While I was trying to come up with it, the intro to this popped into my head. I still can't remember how Axel F goes, so I hope it doesn't sound anything like this. Also, I think this may be better than the "regular" version of the song, so it's too bad pretty much no one's going to hear it...

17. Koise [unused] -- Original Mission 1 theme. This was the first song I programmed for the driver, and it certainly shows. This was where I first ran into all the caveats of writing NES music: My original prototype version of the song was done at a tempo that isn't possible on the NES, so I had to slow it down drastically and ended up killing the song's energy. The original called for a lot of complicated and non-recyclable note patterns, so I had to cut out delay effects and backing parts to make it fit in the space I had. The less-than-stellar results, combined with the fact that the song's mood was too bright and poppy compared to the other music I had written, eventually led me to replace it with Minddrug. Still, I think the original version isn't that bad...

No one's gonna read this far, right? Well, if you did, thanks for listening, or at least reading. But really, I liked Touhou more when I didn't understand it. I liked everything more before I understood it. Concretions and literal thought, the bane of everything I love.

-- Supper, 22 Dec. 2016