Wandering Clouds the overarching theme and also first theme you ever hear going into the Chasm has to take it for me from this OST.
The melody itself immediately brought up thoughts of a vast and untamed landscape. That's mostly thanks to its use of the morin khuur a Mongolian predecessor to China's erhu. One feature that both share is the ability to produce a sound similar to a neighing horse. That alone would already draw out thoughts about a wild open plain but set to music it's pitch has a richness I don't think other instruments can summon.
Tell me that's not the Chasm right there
Listen to 2:14 and 3:14 for the neighing sounds
But as a westerner this same melody not to mention the aesthetics of the Chasm itself reminded me of this guy we have back home.
I visited this place with friends a long while back but as soon as this theme played I was right back there, hiking along the outer rim and camping out at its base after an arduous climb. You can almost smell the hot and dusty air as you have your character descend towards the Chasm Maw and as they climb around on the rocky cliffs you can almost feel the grainy surfaces under your fingers.
But 2/3s of the way in you're brought right back to Liyue's inspiration of China when the plucking of the Guzhen starts. I suppose MiHoYo didn't want us to be too overwhelmed so they included its calming melody letting us really take a breath and soak in everything we're seeing.
I'd say the quests especially the main one you get don't really suit this theme. I mean when you first meet Muning and Zhiqiong they don't exactly make you think of frontiersmen. Instead its the overworld exploration itself that this theme really enhances. I still remember my first time using the Unique Rocks. Half of me was thinking about how dramatic the tremors were spanning from the one I struck all the way to Zhongli's Pillar way off in the distance. The other half was thinking about a good old wild west dynamite antics.
From the first note Wandering Clouds illustrated exactly what would be waiting for us deeper into the Chasm and I can't wait to see what comes next!
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