Iamthemorning have shared the new video for ‘Veni Veni Emmanuel’ taken from their new EP ‘Counting The Ghosts’ which is released today. Marjana from the band comments,
‘Veni Veni Emmanuel is a 12 century hymn sung in latin – the English translation exists and is somewhat more popular but I thought the Latin version will be more in line with our general style. It was arranged for 5 voices by Gleb and the arrangement is inspired by the works of Benjamin Britten. It’s kind of a timeline of music where each verse is associated with a specific time. It starts as a monody then proceeds to medieval style, then to classical european harmony and ends in 20th century.
I wish we could make a video that would do this beautiful song and arrangement justice but i guess right now in the times of pandemic when everyone’s in lockdown all is left is to “Arrange whatever pieces come your way”, which I did.’
Self released by the band to raise money to record their new album and consisting of 4 tracks, ‘Counting The Ghosts’ features 2 new original songs,’Cradle Song’ and ‘Counting The Ghosts’.
The other tracks on the EP see Iamthemorning adding their own twist to two traditional festive songs, ‘Veni Veni Emmanuel’ and the more modern piece ‘I Wonder As I Wander’.
Straight from his hygge home in Sweden Nad Sylvan is happy to be announcing the release of his brand-new single “You’ve Got To Find A Way”, sending some hope and love out into this pandemic-ridden world to warm our hearts all over the globe.
After concluding the Vampirate’s trilogy, Nad now changes course on his upcoming fourth album by converting the poems of WB Yeats into music. The new album, entitled “Spiritus Mundi”, is due for release in early April 2021. “You’ve Got To Find A Way” will be a bonus track on the new album. The track functions as some kind of link between the trilogy and the new work. It’s a standalone track, not related to Yeats”s poems, but it very much showcases the new musical direction Nad has chosen to take.
Nad comments:
“A pandemic love song; sprung from strumming my guitar for about a year, always returning to this tune. During this time, I had met that someone while being on the road right when the pandemic hit and I abruptly had to go home. I usually don´t write on guitar, which makes this song all the more special to me.”
Pre-order for “The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest” albumnow open!
Lyrically, and musically, the award-winning Dutch artist lays her soul bare with the most evocative record of her career – captivating song-stories told with acoustic guitars, strings, horns, percussion, and Anneke’s hypnotic vocal harmonies
Anneke van Giersbergen recently announced the release of her new solo album ‘The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest’. Today she is happy to reveal “My Promise” as the album’s first single. The track premieres alongside an accompanying music video. Anneke comments: “I wrote ‘My Promise’ when I imagined what life after divorce would really entail. The lyrics deal with a determination to fight for love. The song starts off with an acoustic Arabo-Spanish Gypsy vibe and gradually builds towards a euphoric ending. Ruud Peeters wrote a hauntingly melancholic string arrangement.”
Anneke continues: “We shot the video in Radio Royaal, one of my favourite restaurants in my hometown Eindhoven and it shows a few defining moments in a relationship, represented by different couples.”
Additionally, ‘The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest’ is available for pre-order starting today. The album will be available as eco-friendly CD Digipak (plastic-free), as 180g Gatefold LP (incl. the album on CD) & as digital album. It will be released on February 26th, 2021.
01. Agape 02. Hurricane 03. My Promise 04. I Saw A Car 05. The Soul Knows 06. The End 07. Keep It Simple 08. Lo And Behold 09. Losing You 10. Survive 11. Love You Like I Love You
The album’s title, ‘The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest’, refers to the idea that, when facing personal challenges, we are forced to find answers to life’s biggest questions. But, at this point in her near-three-decade-long music career, this solo album – and, crucially, the heartbreak that inspired it – was not something Anneke van Giersbergen ever anticipated writing.
In 2018, Anneke began working on new material for her metal band, VUUR. Although their debut album, ‘In This Moment We Are Free – Cities’, was met with a mixed reception, fans were warming up to their heavy, progressive sound. Therefore, a rapid follow-up album would surely establish Anneke’s return to fronting a metal band. However, behind the scenes, these were troubled times.
Anneke shares, ”My belief in VUUR saw me spend all my savings on recording VUUR’s debut album and taking the band on the road. After completing our first touring cycle, I realized that more VUUR would mean yet more, huge financial risks.”
To make matters worse, in 2018, her long-lasting marriage, which had always been wonderful, unexpectedly saw a storm approaching. Anneke adds, “I instantly knew I needed to write music about fixing my life. This creative endeavour would be far too personal for a VUUR album. And it would also require solitude.”
With just her acoustic guitar and basic recording gear, Anneke retreated to a small house near the woods, just outside her hometown of Eindhoven. She let go of the pressures of what VUUR’s future might be, and fell into the meditative process of writing a solo album. In 2019, work continued on the new songs. In 2020, Anneke asked her friend and producer, Gijs Coolen, to help finish the album.
Throughout the completion of the album, Anneke’s fragile, acoustic song-stories were fused together with an alchemy of panoramic strings, horns, and percussion. The resulting 11-track record has all the intimacy of Anneke serenading an audience of one, combined with surprising departures into swampier, foot-stomping grooves.
The Japanese art of kintsugi has inspired Anneke to use a repaired heart as the album’s symbol. Kintsugi teaches that bringing together the pieces of a broken object – with the use of a precious metal – adds value and uniqueness to it. And, instead of giving up on their marriage, Anneke and her husband decided to take the time to mend their bond. They now cherish the repaired heartbreak as something profoundly valuable.
Their journey through this personal storm, and the album that Anneke created in the eye of it, proves that the darkest skies truly are the brightest.
The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest’ is Anneke’s 23rd career album. It proves, once again, that the award-winning Dutch artist defies being pigeonholed by any genre.
After thirteen years as the front woman for melancholic metallers, The Gathering, she struck out on her own in 2007. Since then, her creativity has known no bounds. Anneke quickly solidified a successful solo career (initially under the moniker Agua de Annique), and has recorded and performed with Canadian metal genius Devin Townsend multiple times. She has also lent her serene yet powerful voice to the likes of: Anathema, Icelandic folk group Árstíðir, Within Temptation, Ayreon mastermind Arjen Lucassen, Amorphis, and prog legend John Wetton.
2012’s ‘Everything is Changing’ was something of a milestone in Anneke’s solo career. The album, which was the first to be released under her own name, received two Edison Award nominations – Holland’s most prestigious music prize – in the categories ‘Best Female Artist’ and ‘Best Album’.
In 2015, Anneke van Giersbergen and Arjen Lucassen (Ayreon) released their collaborative album ‘The Diary’ under the name The Gentle Storm.
In October 2017, Anneke’s progressive metal outfit VUUR released their much-anticipated debut album. ‘In This Moment We Are Free – Cities’ entered the Dutch Album Top 100 at number 2, Anneke’s highest-ever chart position.
Forever the unpredictable artist, in late 2018, Anneke released ‘Symphonized’, an 11-track live orchestral album. It was recorded at two career-spanning concerts alongside Residentie Orkest The Hague, and features rearrangements of songs from her entire back catalogue.
2019 saw Dutch music copyright organisation Buma Cultuur honor Anneke with the Buma ROCKS! Export Award. This is their award for the Most Successful Dutch Artist Abroad in Heavy Music.
In 2021, the release of her new solo album ‘The Darkest Skies Are The Brightest’ will see Anneke surprise her fans all over again.
Downes Braide Association (DBA) announce the release of their new album Halcyon Hymns. The CD/DVD is out on 5th February 2021, and 2LP White Vinyl edition on 26th March 2021.
The first track to be taken from the album, Love Among The Ruins, is out now:
Halcyon Hymns will be the fifth DBA collaboration and follows their previous critically-acclaimed studio albums Pictures of You (2012), Suburban Ghosts (2015) and Skyscraper Souls(2017). The duo have also released Live In England (2019) recorded at their first ever concert at Trading Boundaries, East Sussex, in 2018.
Following two more successful and enjoyable evenings at Trading Boundaries in February of 2020, Geoff Downes returned to Wales and his projects while Chris Braide returned to LA and struggled to find motivation with the unfolding events in a world of lockdown. Inspiration would return following a call from a close friend.
“Marc Almond suggested I ‘get stuck into another DBA record’ to lift the malaise,” say Braide. “Somehow It was hard to muster any enthusiasm for it. We had all been so upbeat at the recent shows and now here we were in a collective, creative void. It’s odd the way inspiration strikes though and it never ceases to delight and surprise me when the muse comes to play and it can happen at any time and without warning.
“I opened up a folder of new DBA ideas Geoff (Downes) had sent to me a while back and which I’d listened to briefly and had made a note to do something with them at a later date. I can’t say why it happened but one day in the studio as I listened to the bits and pieces of ideas suddenly the songs started tumbling out as if by magic. I’m not exaggerating or being melodramatic. These new songs sounded like personal reflections, they just wrote themselves. It was so easy, so enjoyable and so meant to be. Like a gift.”
A few words from Geoff: “It was so great to witness Chris’s creativity making my fundamental ideas come alive. He took the bare bones of melodies, harmonies and textures I sent him, and somehow crafted these into something way beyond my expectations or imagination. ‘Love Among The Ruins’ is one of the many examples on the album of his rare genius at work.”
Love Among The Ruins is a delightful and uplifting love song, reflecting memories and tributes of a long lost halcyon time in life. The first track to be taken from the new album, Love Among The Ruins, is out today 4th December.
Halcyon Hymns also features contributions by Marc Almond (ex-Soft Cell) and David Longdon (Big Big Train).
The CD/DVD package also includes video footage of legendary artist Roger Dean’s painting sessions as he creates the album cover artwork for Halcyon Days together with lyric videos for three tracks from the album.
Single Twenty Twenty One to be released December 4th 2020, Album pre-orders opened December 2nd 2020
Art pop-rock duo LEAGUE OF LIGHTS, comprising married couple Farrah and Richard West (Threshold), are pleased to announce their forthcoming third album Dreamers Don’t Come Down. The follow up to their 2019 album, In The In Between, is due out in March 2021 on the Eightspace label and will be available for pre-order from December 2nd 2020 at https://burningshed.com/tag/League+Of+Lights.
With the exception of the first single Twenty Twenty One and Modern Living, all the songs were written and recorded during the Spring/Summer 2020 lockdown in the UK.
“The album is about the past, the present and the future – about taking the best from all that you have been through, the pressures of modern life and keeping your dreams alive in dark times,” Farrah West explains.
“When lockdown started we really felt compelled to do a new album,” Richard West continues. “We had just finished recording a new song called Modern Living and that helped to define how our new material would sound – more open than before with less synths and more space for Farrah’s vocals to really lift off. The songs just started flowing and from that moment we had a new track written, recorded and mixed every 3-4 weeks, starting with Dreamers and Twenty Twenty One and ending with the closing track Echoes of a Dream, a montage of all the other songs on the album.”
Tracklisting: 1.Modern Living 2.Twenty Twenty One 3.Ghosts 4.I Still Remember 5.Persephone 6.Dreamers 7.With You 8.Lines in the Sand 9.The Collector 10.North of the Sun 11.Echoes of a Dream
About League Of Lights
After marrying in 1998, Farrah and Richard West relocated to the Czech Republic in 2002 to start a new life together and record new music before later returning to the UK to record their debut album as League Of Lights. In tandem with this activity, Richard had joined progressive metal band Threshold, initially as a session player but later becoming co-writer and co-producer. To date Threshold has released 11 studio albums, charted across Europe and Scandinavia and toured around the globe. Richard has also worked with numerous other bands and was recently awarded an RIAA Certified Gold Disc for his vocal and keyboard production work on the DragonForce album Inhuman Rampage, which sold over 500,000 copies.
League Of Lights released their eponymous debut album in 2011, which featured guitarist Ruud Jolie (Within Temptation), bassist Jerry Meehan (Robbie Williams) and drummer Mark Zonder (Fates Warning). In 2012, the duo recorded the single Forever with Threshold vocalist Glynn Morgan as a guest and performed live with a 40 voice choir.
League Of Lights’ acclaimed second album In The In Between was released in late 2019 and contains 14 original songs with a sound that makes room for electronic rock, organic pop, piano, cinematic soundscapes and everything in between, including the singles Kings & Queens and On A Night Like This. Extended versions of three songs from In The In Between were released on the EP Extended Light in March 2020.
The band have performed at various live and online events during Summer 2020 including Artrock Festival in Germany (with Ruud Jolie playing guitar), and more live shows are planned for 2021, including an appearance at Winter’s End Festival.
Ahead of the release of her second album, The Anchoress is releasing a track a month and revealing more details of ‘The Art Of Losing’ due for release on 5th March 2021.
‘Unravel’ is the second song to be unveiled and arrives alongside a striking video featuring the work of New Zealand photographer Lily Warring, inspired by David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. The track announces itself with string quartet that unfolds to a pulsating beat that collides with Cure-esque guitars, vintage synths, and a mournful vocal: “I locked myself in a cupboard to record the vocal to capture that sense of claustrophobia when you feel as if you don’t know where to turn”.
This song follows the current/first single ‘Show Your Face’, which was premiered in November by Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music and quickly added to the station playlist as well as receiving airplay across the country. The NME premiered the video and Catherine discussed the tracks’ theme of toxic masculinity and the #Me Too movement. The album has also entered the Amazon Hot New Releases pre-order sales chart at No.1.
Written and produced by Davies, ‘The Art of Losing’ ambitiously navigates the detritus of death and the process of trying to climb out of it and make something from it. In the aftermath of several years of huge personal loss, after the untimely death of her father from an aggressive brain tumour, undergoing treatment for cervical cancer, and navigating multiple miscarriages and surgeries, the record follows Dylan Thomas’ instruction to “rage against the dying of the light”. And there is nothing sonically “gentle” about its enquiry. But despite the unhappy backdrop to its composition, the album is a far from dour affair. Rather, the fourteen tracks create a technicolour eruption of emotions, firmly concerned with how to find purpose in the midst of grief: “Was there some purpose to losing my mind?”, she asks on the Depeche Mode-inspired title track: “What did you learn when life was unkind..?”
The title of the album is inspired by the opening line of the Elizabeth Bishop poem ‘One Art’ – perhaps unsurprising for someone who also holds a PhD in literature (“which was how I funded making album one… education was my only way out of the life I was born into.”). Conceptually, the record covers ground beyond loss in its literal form: First single ‘Show Your Face’ responds to toxic masculinity and leans in to the #MeToo movement (amidst the angular guitar courtesy of James Dean Bradfield), while the patriarchal dynamics of the music industry are explored on the wurltizer-led ‘With The Boys’. At the emotional centre of the album is ‘5am’ – a haunting song that looks at the visceral physical impact of sexual assault and baby loss, with its quiet but powerful contemplation of the shared female experience.
There’s a Scott Walker-eque baroque feel to the voice at the healing heart of the album, which is bookended by a series of Max Richter-inspired orchestral instrumental pieces. Loss is figured in both its raw newness and as a propelling energy, with hook-laden nods to Bowie’s Berlin-era . ‘Unravel’ announces itself as a twentieth-first century reworking of ‘Running Up That Hill’, colliding with the chorused guitars of The Cure. Elsewhere, the John Grant and Father John Misty flavoured ‘Let It Hurt’ explores “the ways in which we distract ourselves from grief”, while the sound-collaged segues recall the more experimental side of Prog.
‘The Art of Losing’ is a sonically ambitious album that is helmed by Davies on sole production duties – a move she said felt natural after having a “side hussle” in engineering and producing for other artists and bands: “I feel passionate about the idea that it shouldn’t be a novelty to see women behind a mixing desk. There’s lots of us out there!”. To finish the self-produced record, Davies called upon the mixing talents of Dave Eringa (Manic Street Preachers) and grammy-award winner Mario McNulty (David Bowie, Laurie Anderson).
An accompanying podcast features guest interviews which explore why we create and what we learn from loss, featuring conversations with Welsh poet Patrick Jones, writer Kat Lister, and Empire editor-in-chief Terri White.
TRANSATLANTIC – the Prog Supergroup of Neal Morse, Mike Portnoy, Roine Stolt & Pete Trewavas – are pleased to announce their fifth studio album ‘The Absolute Universe’, set for release on the 5th February 2021. Representing the band’s first new music since 2014’s ‘Kaleidoscope’, with ‘The Absolute Universe’ the band have done something unique and created two versions of the record: ‘The Absolute Universe: The Breath Of Life (Abridged Version)’ & ‘The Absolute Universe: Forevermore (Extended Version)’.
Today they have launched the video for ‘Overture / Reaching For The Sky’, taken from ‘The Absolute Universe: The Breath Of Life (Abridged Version)’.
Mike Portnoy comments: “’Reaching For The Sky’ is the first single off Transatlantic’s latest Magnum opus ‘The Absolute Universe’. It’s a great introduction to this epic album as it sets the tone in traditional TA style: proceeded on the album by an extended Instrumental Overture and then launching into this upbeat first song.
I love that it features one of my favorite qualities of the band in the sharing of the lead vocals…in this case: Neal singing lead on Verse 1, myself singing lead on Verse 2, Pete & Neal sharing the Chorus with myself and Roine on backups and Neal taking the glorious Bridge…all leading to Roine’s distinctive guitar solo.
Also interesting is that this version exclusively appears on the Abridged 1CD Version of TA5 (“The Breath Of Life”) while the Extended 2CD Version of TA5 (“Forevermore”) opens with the alternate version ‘Heart Like A Whirlwind’ which has different lead vocals and lyrics .”
Each album will be available on CD, LP & Digitally. But there will also be what has been called ‘The Absolute Universe: The Ultimate Edition’, which collects both versions together in one lavish package that includes 5LP’s, 3CD’s & a Blu-ray that includes a special mix that combines both versions into a third unique version in 5.1 surround sound with visuals and a behind the scenes documentary. All editions have artwork created by Thomas Ewerhard featuring the airship by Pavel Zhovba.
As Mike Portnoy explains: “We’ve got two versions of this album. There is a two CD presentation, which is 90 minutes long, and a single one – that’s 60 minutes. However, the single CD is NOT merely an edited version of the double CD. They each contain alternate versions and even in some cases, new recordings. We wrote fresh lyrics and have different people singing on the single CD version tracks as compared to those on the double CD. Some of the song titles have also been changed, while others might remain the same, but compositionally what you’ll hear has been altered. You must appreciate that what we have done is unique. We revamped the songs to make the two versions different.” Pete Trewavas adds: “We did write some new music for the single CD, what’s more, there are also differences in the instruments used on some of the tracks across the two records.”
Available as: 2CD Edition, 3LP+2CD Boxset, or Digital Album
Track-listing:
Disc 1:
1. Overture
2. Heart Like A Whirlwind
3. Higher Than The Morning
4. The Darkness In The Light
5. Swing High, Swing Low
6. Bully
7. Rainbow Sky
8. Looking For The Light
9. The World We Used To Know
Disc 2:
1. The Sun Comes Up Today
2. Love Made A Way (Prelude)
3. Owl Howl
4. Solitude
5. Belong
6. Lonesome Rebel
7. Looking For The Light (Reprise)
8. The Greatest Story Never Ends
9. Love Made A Way
‘The Absolute Universe: The Ultimate Edition’
Limited Deluxe Clear 5LP+3CD+Blu-Ray Box-set – contained within a foil-finished lift-off box with extended 16-page LP booklet & 60x60cm poster. Includes both versions of the album over 5LP’s and 3CD’s, plus a Blu-Ray with 5.1 mix & documentary.
Blu-Ray Track-listing:
1. Overture (5.1 Surround Mix)
2. Reaching For The Sky (5.1 Surround Mix)
3. Higher Than The Morning (5.1 Surround Mix)
4. The Darkness In The Light (5.1 Surround Mix)
5. Take Now My Soul (5.1 Surround Mix)
6. Bully (5.1 Surround Mix)
7. Rainbow Sky (5.1 Surround Mix)
8. Looking For The Light (5.1 Surround Mix)
9. The World We Used To Know (5.1 Surround Mix)
10. The Sun Comes Up Today (5.1 Surround Mix)
11. Love Made A Way (Prelude) (5.1 Surround Mix)
12. Owl Howl (5.1 Surround Mix)
13. Solitude (5.1 Surround Mix)
14. Belong (5.1 Surround Mix)
15. Lonesome Rebel (5.1 Surround Mix)
16. Can You Feel It (5.1 Surround Mix)
17. Looking For The Light (Reprise) (5.1 Surround Mix)
18. The Greatest Story Never Ends (5.1 Surround Mix)
19. Love Made A Way (5.1 Surround Mix)
20. The Making of The Absolute Universe (Documentary)
Initial tracking began in September 2019 when the band met up in Sweden to write and arrange the new material. As Portnoy explains: “Over a period of 10-14 days, we mapped out the songs. Then we all went back to our home studios and did the recording. That’s the way we always do it. At one point, though, it was suggested that instead of doing what was by that time going to be a double album, we should just be content to do a single CD.”
“What happened was that everything kept expanding and expanding,” recalls Stolt. “Therefore we decided it made sense to make it a double album. It was Pete and Neal who then came out and said they felt this would be too long, and we should reduce it to one…But we were already recording, and it didn’t seem feasible to cut it back. There were so many pieces that each of us loved in what we were planning and didn’t want to lose. That’s when we ended up in discussions over the best way forward.”
This album also marks a return to the concept album for Transatlantic. “Well, the idea of Transatlantic deciding to do a concept record this time around won’t shock anyone, right?” laughs Portnoy. “What we have is essentially one giant composition, split into chapters. The storyline is about the struggles facing everyone in society today.”“We didn’t start out with the idea of this being conceptual,” admits Stolt. “The way things work with us is that we have a load of ideas, and these are developed spontaneously when we meet up. Everything happens in the moment.”
So, how does this new ground-breaking album compare to Transatlantic’s previous four albums?
“I always try not to compare albums as much as possible,” insists Morse. “It’s very difficult when you’re trying to be creative, because your natural instinct is to constantly compare. But in order to create you have to kind of step away from that. Having said that, I would say this would have more in common with ‘The Whirlwind’ album (the band’s third, from 2009) than others that we’ve created.”
For Trewavas, ‘The Absolute Universe’ is a momentous project.“I think it is right up there with the very finest albums we’ve done. As the others have said, it compares very well to ‘The Whirlwind’, which I believe represents Transatlantic at our best. As on that album, we took our time to write and arrange everything, and that shines through. I am very excited for people to hear it.”
Transatlantic were originally formed in 1999, releasing their debut album ‘SMTPe’ the following year as well as its follow-up ‘Bridge Across Forever’ in 2001. Following a 7-year hiatus, the band reconvened to record and release the much-acclaimed epic 77-minute, single-track album ‘The Whirlwind’ followed by a world tour in 2010 which included an appearance at High Voltage Festival in London where they were joined by legendary Genesis guitarist Steve Hackett. The band’s fourth album ‘Kaleidoscope’ arrived in 2014, going on to win ‘Album Of The Year’ at the Progressive Music Awards.
DEBUT ALBUM ‘CHRONICLE I: THE TRUTHSEEKER’ RELEASED 6TH NOVEMBER (NEW HEAVY SOUNDS)
‘a stunning example of the band’s complete presentation. While many make the claim to have a balance of sight and sound, Mountain Caller underscore the totality of their talent with the video for “I Remember Everything.’ – KNOTFEST
Heavy, progressive, instrumental three-piece Mountain Caller, who are ready to engage hyper-drive and launch their debut album into the riff time continuum on 6th November (New Heavy Sounds) have shared the epic new video for ‘I Remember Everything’. Guitarist Claire Simson comments,
‘The video for “I Remember Everything” was directed and produced by ridiculously talented friend of the band Tom Le Bon. It tells fragments of the story written in tandem with the album and even features The Protagonist. It’s not a literal dramatisation but the scenes are symbolic parts of the story and the film team did an outstanding job bringing it to life. We are beyond stoked with how it turned out and can’t wait to share it with the world.’
Recorded in January of 2020 at No Studio in Manchester by producer Joe Clayton of Pijn, and mastered by Magnus Lindberg of ‘Cult Of Luna’. For the band, it’s a labour of love; the fruit of three years of jamming, crafting, and conceptualising; a collaborative piece, where each instrument takes centre stage, within a heady mix of chasmic riffs and panoramic, reflective soundscapes.
If one needs a sonic ballpark, think the infectious jamming of Elder and the dynamic cinema-scapes of Mogwai, underpinned by the mantric riffs of Sleep.
Chronicle I: The Truthseeker is a feminist allegory created in tandem with the music. As the band describe it …
‘In The Truthseeker, we join The Protagonist at the edge of the Twilight Desert, compelled by an indefinable but urgent need to set forth on an Odyssean journey to rediscover her memory and her voice. Over the course of 42 minutes, we travel from barren wastelands to mysterious cities, encountering trials of both body and spirit.’
It is indeed a 6 track instrumental journey. Full of winding roads, brooding valleys and strange encounters, all vividly evoked by a canny grasp of dynamics, melody and heavy, but hooky riffs, executed with peerless playing.
Chronicle I: The Truthseeker is the beginning of the Chronicle saga, and also one senses, the beginning of a high-reaching career.
Just in time for Halloween, Chicago prog rockers District 97 present their first animated short film, the epic tale of “Ghost Girl.” Taken from their most recent release Screens, “Ghost Girl” is the musical journey of a little girl who longs to fit in. The only problem? She’s terrorized by malevolent spirits, and nobody believes her—except for her loving but overbearing mother.
Jonathan Schang, District 97’s drummer/primary composer and Ghost Girl Executive Producer states: “For well over a year, I’ve had a vision in my head of an animated short film for Leslie’s and my song “Ghost Girl” from the Screens album. I imagined something that conjured a similar mood to Steven Wilson’s and Owl House Studios’ stop motion videos. Through happenstance I was put in touch with director Christopher Kezelos (Zero, The Maker), who enthusiastically took on the project. Since January, we closely collaborated to bring Ghost Girl and her world to life.
“I never could’ve guessed how much all of our lives would change during the making of this film, but I feel that makes its story of isolation, alienation, and redemption all the more relevant. I hope it captivates music and film fans everywhere this Halloween season and beyond.” Christopher Kezelos, Director says: “When I first heard the song Ghost Girl by District 97, I was instantly drawn into the disturbing tale of a young medium terrorized by evil spirits and the epic highs and lows of this sweeping rock ballad.
“Every line of the song conjured haunting and beautiful images in my mind that I wanted to bring to the screen.
“The song, sung from the protagonist’s point of view, felt very personal. I wanted to portray her story through a diary as she journals her life and shares her intimate secrets with the viewer. Sketches that ebb from dark and gritty to light and calm as she pours her heart and soul onto the page.“I wanted every scene to feel like a beautiful cinemagraph. A memory captured in time, with a hint of motion that draws you into Ghost Girl’s world.
“My hope is that her tale of transformation resonates with audiences struggling with their own demons.”
Following the announcement that Lunatic Soul will release their new and seventh album Through Shaded Woods, through Kscope on 13th November: the band have premiered ‘The Passage’, the first single and video to be taken from the forthcoming album:
Of the new track Mariusz Duda comments “’The Passage’ is a signature piece of the new Lunatic Soul album, on which we enter a mysterious forest full of dynamic, ritual dances. The title “passage” is the destination for the main character, where he is to be cleansed and reborn. “Shaded Woods” are our worst traumas and nightmares, the most difficult moments in our life. Going through them symbolises facing and overcoming them. “Through Shaded Woods” is about reaching a better place in life, about giving yourself another chance.
“Shaded Woods” is also symbolic of our present, difficult times. Let us hope that at the end of this dangerous path we are on, we will have become richer in new experiences, wiser and much stronger, which is my wish for everyone. May this song, as well as the whole album, be like a torch, which not only makes the darkness disappear, but might come in handy when fighting monsters.”
On album number seven Mariusz Duda, the multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, and mastermind behind Lunatic Soul is extending his musical explorations to include dark Scandinavian and Slavic folk referencing bands like Heilung or Wardruna. Following the heavily electronic sound of previous albums Fractured and Under the Fragmented Sky, Through Shaded Woods is completely devoid of electronics and is the first album in Duda’s discography, on which he plays all instruments.
Mariusz found his inspiration for the album from his childhood home, an area of Poland known for its forests and lakes, ” I think I have always wanted to create an album steeped in nature and woodlands. These bring to my mind freedom, breathing and a dance ritual of coming back to nature, so I wanted the album to include such ritualistic primal dances, shamanic, Slavic and Viking moods. I wanted to mix it all up and put it all together, making “Through Shaded Woods” the most intense, dynamic and the most danceable album in my career.“
Mariusz Duda appears to have put the personal darkness that inspired his previous albums behind him, as more optimistic elements shine through in his new music. The album becoming musically “brighter” as it progresses – from the atmospheric introduction of “Navvie” through to the title track, which leads the listener to a melodious, trance like “Oblivion”, echoing the style of Dead Can Dance.
Through Shaded Woods will be released on CD; 2 CD featuring a bonus disc of 3 additional tracksincluding a 26-minute suite called “Transition 2; black vinyl LP in gatefold sleeve and digitally and is available to pre-order HERE (https://lunaticsoul.lnk.to/ThroughShadedWoods)
