Mascot Label
Group is proud to announce the signing of Ayreon, the highly acclaimed project
from singer / songwriter / multi-instrumentalist / record producer Arjen
Lucassen. The Ayreon catalog, comprising seven studio albums, will be released
on various digital platforms on April 22nd.
Arjen Lucassen
and Mascot Label Group CEO Ed van Zijl go back twenty years. Ed was doing
business out of his one-man office when Arjen showed up on his doorstep, with
Ayreon’s debut album The Final Experiment in hand. They didn’t ink a deal
that day, but both parties are extremely pleased to say that as of 2016, Music
Theories Recordings (part of Mascot Label Group) is Ayreon’s new
home.
Ayreon is in a class of its own. You might call Lucassen’s
Ayreon studio albums “rock operas.” Or, to be more precise, you may prefer a
description like, “ambitious studio projects combining progressive rock, metal,
and folk over intricate storylines, brought to life by countless famous guest
singers from all over the world.” But no
matter how you categorize it, the Ayreon album collection offers highly creative
rock music with a quality in composition and production rarely heard in the last
twenty years.
Ten years with
hardrock band Vengeance brought Lucassen recognition in not just the
Netherlands, but in Germany, Switzerland, Japan, the UK and the USA, as well.
When he started writing and recording on his own in the early 90s, it was the
funding of a Japanese record label that got the ball rolling. The Final
Experiment was Ayreon’s first album, released in the Netherlands in 1995 by
start-up label Transmission Records. It set the tone for the project, with
intricate sci-fi/fantasy storytelling and timeless progressive rock featuring a
line-up of world class vocalists and musicians, including Barry Hay (Golden
Earring), Jan-Chris de Koeijer (Gorefest), and Kingdom Come’s Lenny
Wolf.
The follow-up,
Actual Fantasy (1996), turned out to be a relatively modest production,
but the phenomenal reception of these first Ayreon albums exposed Lucassen to
world-famous singers and instrumentalists like Fish (Marillion), Bruce Dickinson
(Iron Maiden), Devin Townsend, James LaBrie (Dream Theater), Neal Morse (Flying
Colors, Spock's Beard), Cristina Scabbia (Lacuna Coil), John Wetton (King
Crimson, Asia), Mikael Åkerfeldt (Opeth, Bloodbath), Ty Tabor (King’s X, The
Jelly Jam), Floor Jansen (Nightwish), Michael Romeo and Russell Allen (Symphony
X), Steve Hackett (Genesis), Derek Sherinian (Dream Theater, Alice Cooper),
Keith Emerson (Emerson, Lake & Palmer), and Rick Wakeman (Yes). Besides
Lucassen himself, virtuoso drummer Ed Warby (Gorefest, Hail of Bullets, The 11th
Hour) is the only other constant member of Ayreon.
Into The
Electric Castle was released
to critical acclaim in 1998, and the album went on to sell over 100,000 copies. The twin albums Universal Migrator Part 1:
The Dream Sequencer and Universal Migrator Part 2: Flight of the Migrator
(2000) proved that Lucassen was not afraid to take Ayreon to yet another
level of larger-than-life creativity. With The Human Equation (2004),
Lucassen turned away from his earlier sci-fi themes to explore the realm of
human emotions. The Human Equation was adapted for stage and performed in
2015 by a cast that included almost everybody from the original album. In 2007,
Arjen returned to the sci-fi concept and linked all of the previous Ayreon
albums together, musically as well as lyrically, on 01011001. The album
features no less than 17 vocalists.
The Theory of
Everything (2013) again
received rave reviews around the world and, like its predecessors, sold
remarkably well in a time when few progressive rock acts manage to rise above
the crowd. The album was released after a five-year break in which Lucassen
concentrated on other projects, including Guilt Machine’s album On This
Perfect Day, which was released on Mascot Records in 2009. The recording -
quite a departure from Ayreon’s bombastic approach - attracted a very dedicated
audience of its own.
Some years
later, a few Ayreon albums were released on vinyl and, according to Lucassen,
“sold really well. That’s when I realized that fans of Guilt Machine would
probably appreciate a vinyl release too.” By 2014, Lucassen met with Mascot’s Ed
van Zijl again. “I asked him if he would be interested in releasing Guilt
Machine on vinyl, and he immediately said yes,” explained Van Zijl. “It took
months to figure out the details of the packaging and the extras, and then
manufacture it. The fans were ecstatic! The first pressing was sold out online
in just a few hours in June of 2015. Then Mascot decided to press more colours
and black vinyl, as well.”
Obviously the
two started discussing Lucassen’s other projects as well. When the topic of
Ayreon came up, Ed van Zijl offered Lucassen a deal he couldn’t refuse… or could
he? It took Lucassen six months to decide: “At first I didn’t feel the urge to
change labels. But in the back of my mind was the feeling that I really liked
the atmosphere and the people at Mascot. This Dutch company, close by, just felt
good.” The idea of trying something new finally tipped the scales: “Ed simply
said yes to everything I asked for! Plus, it was time for a fresh new
start.”
Ayreon studio
albums on Music Theories Recordings:
The Final
Experiment
Actual Fantasy
Into the
Electric Castle
Universal
Migrator Part 1: The Dream Sequencer
Universal
Migrator Part 2: Flight of the Migrator
The Human
Equation
01011001
No comments:
Post a Comment