Inga Scharf – Van Canto

Interview by Andy Axworthy

After releasing four successful albums in almost five years, the band Van Canto does not really need an introduction. Their ‘A Capella’ metal has drawn the attention of thousands of fans worldwide over these years. This interview is with Inga Scharf, one of the singers of the band, who talks about the brand-new album “Break the Silence”, her music inspirations and the future plans of the band.

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Mike Oldfield – “Tubular Beats” (2013)

Label : earMusic/Edel

Review by Davide Torresan

I am 26 years old, almost 27, and I don’t know who’s Mike Oldfield. Yes, you‘ve read right. Sometimes I’ve heard his name, but I’ve never listened to his music. Or at least I thought it. When “Tubular Beats” arrived on my desk, I fixed this issue looking a bit around and I can honestly say that I was surprised by what I’ve discovered since he’s the author of the famous hits “To France”, “Guilty” and “Moonlight Shadow”. I was really blown away by his skills and the boundless musical talent of this artist. “Tubular Beats” was the album that pushed me to browse within his infinite discography.

This new album is not a new experiment for Mike since already in the past it has been released something similar. “Tubular Beats” is the summary of all his most famous songs in a dance reinterpretation. The author of this work is Torsten “York” Stenzel, a famous producer and dj in Ibiza which every summer entertains thousands and thousands of people on the dancefloors. The name, and obviously the album cover, derive from “Tubular Bells”, the most renowned work of Mike and from its sequels. Continue reading »

MIKE OLDFIELD release new studio album “Tubular Beats” on FEBRAURY 1ST

earMUSIC is proud to announce the release of “Tubular Beats” the brand new remix album by Mike Oldfield. The album will be released on February 1st, 2013 and will include the most popular songs by Oldfield who has worked on new arrangements and new sounds for his compositions.

All tracks have been reworked from the original multi-track recordings and remixed together by Mike Oldfield and multi-platinum awarded German producer Torsten “York” Stenzel.

Newly recorded guitar parts by Mike Oldfield have been added to the mix, making “Tubular Beats” a new album by all means. A brand new song featuring ex-Nightwish singer Tarja Turunen closes the album on a high note.

Before “Tubular Beats”, Mike Oldfield and Torsten Stenzel had already worked together but with this new album the duo could fuse their style in a full elaborate project for the first time, adding to Oldfield most famous songs their approach and taste with all solutions offered by electronic music.

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NIGHTWISH Singer FLOOR JANSEN Returns To Opera

Nightwish singer Floor Jansen returned to her opera roots recently when she sang a Puccini piece on Dutch TV, broadcast earlier this week. View her performance below.

The vocalist, who joined Nightwish as a touring member following the departure of Anette Olzon last year, admits her appearance was arranged at short notice.

Jansen explains: “They invite pop singers to sing a classical piece, and even though I studied classical singing, I am not a opera singer full time. “It was great to do again. However I had no time to prepare a new aria. I wore a dress you would normally not see me wear!”

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INTERVIEW: Virginie Goncalves – Kells

Interview by Ary R.

They rocked Europe last year with Leaves’Eyes and Tarja Turunen, and with Epica and ReVamp the former year as well. Now they’re back on the music scene with the upcoming album, “Anachromie”, that will reveal some other music features of the French rock band Kells. Just read with us what the front-woman Virginie Goncalves told to us!

I’m fine, thanks! “Anachromie” has been out for a month now, and it seems that both the press and the fans have praised this record. We are very happy about that because somehow we had chosen to take artistic risks, not to repeat ourselves and to renew our image, and people liked it!

In this album, everything in the lyrics is written in a disjointed way, the space-time notion is broken, the reality mixes up with the dream, as in the surrealist genre… Globally, the lyrics are anachronistic. Also, I use many adjectives of color (ochre, silver, gold, amaranth, blue, white, black, saffron, amber, sapphire, sandy…), which gives the lyrics a very pictorial aspect. It is the mixture of these 2 concepts, the chromia and the anachronism, that gave birth to “Anachromie”. The cover artwork has been made by Blackthorns Design. We appreciated what he had made for other bands, this mixture of surrealism and modernity, that’s why we decided to work with him. The frontcover and the booklet are an illustration of the lyrics… the girl with her bridal veil, with all her dreams, the tortured childhood, the nightmares and the anachronism always there, with the hours of the clock, the tracklist in disorder … as in the surrealist universe, where nothing has any reasonable landmarks or points of reference.

We recorded this album in November 2011, more than a year ago already! We went to Mon Studio in Nancy, to work with Yann (MyPollux). We began with the recording of the drums, then the basses, the guitars, the strings, the choir, keyboards, electro music, to finally end up with the vocals, at the end of November. So it took almost one month, because we prefer taking time! Yann then attacked the mixing in December, and we eventually sent it all in New York to the Sterling Sound Studio for Ted Jensen to master it in february 2011.

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