One of the most ambitious albums of all time just became all the more epic!
Oh yes! Do not adjust your zeppelin goggles – the unthinkable has finally happened! We’re delighted to once again to have teamed up with Plane Groovy to deliver the ultimate in Prog-rock collector’s items – a stunning 5-LP Vinyl boxset edition of our acclaimed 3-hour conceptual adventure “The Clockwork Fable.”
The Vinyl release, which originally spanned three CDs, is limited to only 300 copies and contains the entire, unabridged, steampunk mind-movie, retaining the exceptional dramatic performances by the likes of TV’s Mark Benton and Gremlins star Zach Galligan amongst others! We also have some uber-rare test pressing editions for the ultimate record collectors out there!
As we’re sure you’ll imagine, this is a brave and exciting undertaking for all involved and we think the price is more than reasonable for such a limited item that contains 5 full vinyl LPs chock full of music and story. The Boxset will also include an insert of exclusive art fully signed by the band!
Shipping expected around July – don’t hang about reserve your copy today over at gandalfsfist.com/vinyl
Obscured Behind – Live at Hops features sixteen tracks recorded live at Hops – Rovigo, Italy in October 2017, all the songs have been re-arranged for three guitars. The album is available for preorder here. The physical album will be released worldwide on May 9th and the album will make its debut at the legendary US Art Rock Festival. RoSfest in Sarasota Florida.
Tracklisting
The sea of vibes
Ballad of a pleasant place
The light is burning
Beltane
What are we willing to lose?
Skies painted by the wind
Mystical light
Little boy lullaby
La Sierra
Into the wheel of time
Grant me
There’s no one out there
Faint memory
People of the rising sun
Get out of here
Far beyond the line
Marco Ragni: Vocals, acoustic and electric guitar, keyboards programming. Giovanni Menarello: Acoustic and electric guitar. Manuel Pasetti: Electric and acoustic guitar, bass
Production Notes Produced and Mastered by Marco Ragni at Sunflower Studios, Rovigo, Italy Mixed by Luca Zanetti for Sound Imagine, remixed by Marco Ragni. Remastered from the original tape at Sunflower Studios – Rovigo, Italy in March 2020.
What’s the most unexpected thing for me to do a day before Out to Sea 3 drops? ANNOUNCE MY YACHT ROCK RECORD. “Yacht” is my next pop vocal record and it comes out 3/20/20 10 songs that are smoother than the wood on a 60s yacht.
Tracklisting 1. I Wanna Look In Your Eyes 2. Streetwalkin Rhythm 3. Kissing A Smile (feat. Chloe Dolandis). 4. Mullholland Highway 5. SIde By Side 6. Stay With The Friends 7. Love Is A Journey 8. Feels 9. The One You Run To 10. Hollywood Bowl
WHY DID I MAKE THIS? Fernando Perdomo and The Out to Sea Band will be performing YACHT ROCK On The Blue Cruise 2020 So I wrote some originals to keep us from being just a cover band.. hope you dig
Lifesigns UK tour, which starts in Swindon on Friday! All going well, the band is sounding great and we’re introducing a few new tunes to the set. Hope some of you can make it along – full gig list below. Last weekend I recorded the guitar parts for a new 15 minute epic piece for the forthcoming Lifesigns album. The track is called ‘Altitude‘ and is sounding amazing. It won’t be included in the set as we’re still working on completing it and it will need a lot of rehearsal, but I hope it will be ready to be included in subsequent tours later in the year!
On tour with Lifesigns, Fernando Perdomo, Sally Minnear & Strawbs!
DAVE BAINBRIDGE (SOLO) 15th June The Royal Oak, Hampton, London (Dave playing 1/2 hour set at the Jam Night – free entry!)
STRAWBS ELECTRIC BAND UK TOUR (Further info here) 17th June Cheese & Grain, Frome 19th June Clarence Hall, Abergavenny, Wales 20th June Trading Boundaries, East Sussex 21st June Cambridge Rock Festival, Peterborough 22nd June Robin 2, Bilston 23rd June The Stables, Wavendon
As mentioned in the previous newsletter, another very exciting project I’ve been working on with Rob Ayling from Gonzo Multimedia is a new Iona 30th Anniversary box set!! Actually this will be the first of several Iona box set releases and will be titled ‘The Book of Iona’ In the past few weeks I’ve been going through my extensive archive of Iona recordings, looking for things to include on the companion disk which will accompany each of the studio albums and I’ve discovered some amazing stuff! Previously unreleased songs, original demo tapes, alternate mixes, live recordings I’d completely forgotten about etc!! A real treasure trove for all Iona fans. I played some of these to Rob the other day and he was blown away by what I’d found – some real gems, including a recording from August 1989 of the very first time Joanne and I got together to record demos of some of her just written songs for the first album! It’s taking me a while to go through everything and choose what to include, but the recordings give an incredible insight into the background behind the band’s albums and working methods. Above is an illustration of how the box set will look. I saw a prototype of the box a few days ago and it looks really great – very substantial and classy – a real coffee table item! More on this soon and on the new Open Sky Records online store, which will be launching very soon!!
KANSAS, America’s legendary progressive rock band, will release their highly anticipated new studio album “The Absence of Presence” on June 26, 2020. The album follows-up 2016’s “The Prelude Implicit,” which debuted at #14 on Billboard’s Top 200 Albums chart. KANSAS has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide, and is famous for classic hits such as ‘Carry On Wayward Son’ and ‘Dust in the Wind’ to progressive epics like ‘Song for America.’
“The Absence of Presence,” released by Inside Out Music, features nine all-new tracks written by the band, produced by Zak Rizvi, and co-produced by Phil Ehart and Richard Williams. KANSAS’s signature sound is unmistakable throughout. The album showcases Ronnie Platt’s towering vocals, David Ragsdale’s searing violin, Tom Brislin’s dazzling keyboards, Williams and Rizvi’s electrifying guitar riffs, Ehart’s powerful drums, and Billy Greer’s rocking bass.
This fall, KANSAS will be taking its very popular Point of Know Return Anniversary Tour to Europe for 13 dates in October and November. The Point of Know Return Anniversary European Tour will include songs from “The Absence of Presence,” classic hits and deep cuts, and will culminate with the iconic album “Point of Know Return” performed in its entirety.
“We are really proud of the album ‘The Absence of Presence,’” comments KANSAS guitarist, producer, and songwriter Zak Rizvi. “Making a new KANSAS album sets a very high musical standard that is expected from our fans. From rockers to progressive epics, to ballads, there is something on this recording for everybody.”
“It’s been a while since the band has been able to perform in Europe, where we have some very passionate fans,” adds KANSAS guitarist Richard Williams. “We are excited to take the Point of Know Return Anniversary Tour across Europe. Not only will they hear us perform that album in its entirety, along with other hits and deep cuts, but they will be the first fans to hear some of the songs from ‘The Absence of Presence’ performed live.”
After wrapping-up current U.S. dates for the Point of Know Return Anniversary Tour this spring, KANSAS will debut a track from “The Absence of Presence” live, this summer, during the Juke Box Heroes 2020 Tour when the band will be touring with Foreigner and Europe.
“The Absence of Presence” will be released on June 26, 2020, on Inside Out Music and is distributed by The Orchard. Pre-order opportunities will be available starting later this spring at KansasBand.com and Amazon.com.
Tickets for the KANSAS Point of Know Return Anniversary European Tour will go on sale this week. Ticket and VIP Package information is available at KansasBand.com
Tickets for the U.S. Point of Know Return Anniversary Tour, Juke Box Heroes 2020 Tour, and KANSAS Classics dates are on sale now with ticket and VIP package information available at KansasBand.com
Tracklisting 1. Adventures In The Kings Garden 06:23 2. From Sea To Infinity 05:11 3. A Window To October 07:05 4. The Forgotten 04:23 5. Skipping On Frozen Fire 06:24 6. Jupiters Calling 04:04 7. LVX 04:55 8. Pendragons Cove 02:03 9. Crimson Lights And Dark Waters 09:12 10. I Am Divided 07:57 11. Possibilities 04:12 12. Dream Currents 07:10
Crimson Lights and Dark Waters: Additional guitars and end guitar solo by Stephen George Geyer.
All lyrics by Allison and Gregg Music by: Scarlet Hollow Produced, mixed and mastered by Gregg Olson Cover art by GV Hapeman Layout & design by Håkon (Hawk) Engvig of 4eign Design
In a recent interview, Gregg Olson guitarist and co-founder of Scarlet Hollow talks about the new album and why it has taken eight years to release the 2nd full-length album “A Window to October”.
Questions for Scarlet Hollow part one. A sit down with Gregg
Q: what has Scarlet Hollow been up to? A: we’ve put together a new album called”A Window to October”
Q: what kind of music is on it? A: man I hate this question. But here it goes. Some of my favorite music has always been from the more melodic and song-oriented progressive bands, for instance, Marillion, Porcupine Tree, Pink Floyd, Rush, bands that in my mind transcend the genre that many people think is all about overindulging in one’s musical abilities for a long period of time. Nothing wrong with that and I absolutely love a lot of those bands but I’m very moved by clever and creative sonic sculpting by the artist that certainly could show off their abilities and do that when the moment is right. It’s like driving a Ferrari at 65 mph if you know what I mean. I also love some R&B and we all love Acoustic music. So I really think Steven Wilson said it best once. He called his music “creative music“. That works well I think.
Q: what’s taken so long to hear a follow up too to 2012’s “What If Never Was”? A: I had some significant health issues right after finishing that album, in fact, it was still at the cd manufacturing plant!
I lost my ability to play and even hold the guitar, among just learning how to walk again. But the drive to write never left me. That whole experience and working though it turned out to be a tremendous growing and introspective process that actually was the inspiration for these songs. Call it “forced Zen”. I wrote most of the germ ideas for this album laying in bed on my IPad! My playing would gradually come back year after year so I would have to keep changing my guitar parts to get them closer to what was in my head instead of just what I could physically play. Then we found our new drummer Jay around 2017. He was so inspiring and my playing had come back! Well, if you know anything about music production you know that Drums go first, everything builds up from that foundation. So everything we all had recorded needed to be re-recorded over. Plus his playing was so inspiring that I changed some song parts and structure. All this led to Jeff rewriting his incredible bass parts, which led to Allison’s melodies. So really it has only taken 3 years to make this one. Quite fast for us! And I still only can work when the muse calls. So there would be large chunks of time that nothing was being worked on.
Q: what happened and how did it influence this album? A: I had a major stroke of unknown origins.
I took up meditation and got into zen and Buddist philosophy and practices. That eventually turned into diving headfirst into my life long love of eastern and western esoteric knowledge.
These things all had a profound influence on the material. There are many levels musically and lyrically to explore… lots of symbolism going on, some subtle and some not so subtle.
Q: I’ve heard the tracks. Beautiful stuff. Quite different from the first album. A: I never liked bands where every album was the same. That being said, Light and dark have always been a part of our sound and this one is no different it’s all in there still.
Part 2 coming soon.
In a comment from Nick Katona President – Melodic Revolution Records
We are thrilled that Gregg Olson and Scarlet Hollow have returned with what we believe is the band’s best work to date. I can still remember vividly receiving the phone about Gregg having a stroke, I was devastated, we had just made plans for Scarlet Hollow’s debut release and the band was rehearsing for their first tour.
The prognosis that night was not very positive, it was grim in fact, but we kept close tabs on Gregg’s health, it wasn’t so much that we were worried about album sales. We were worried about a person that had become a friend, I first met Gregg on myspace in 2006 and Melodic Revolution picked up the self-titled Echoe’s Landing for release. It’s because of this band that we formed the record label.
The good news is that over the next couple of years Gregg’s was getting better and his recovery seemed like a miracle. Fast track to today Scarlet Hollow has returned stronger, more focused and sounding better than ever. Get ready to take a musical journey with one of the most important bands today.
Scarlet Hollow Allison VonBuelow – vocals, acoustic guitars Jeff Mack – bass, bass pedals Gregg Olson – electric guitars, synths Jay Setar – drums, percussion
Discography A Window to October – (2020) CD & Digital Album I Am Divided (2017) Digital Single What If Never Was (2012) CD & Digital Album Sanctuary – Remaster(2010) Digital EP
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