The long-awaited NIGHTWISH movie Imaginaerum is now available in North America on Nuclear Blast Records!
Imaginaerum tells the story of an elderly composer, Tom, who suffers from severe dementia. As he has had the disease for years and has regressed into childhood, he remembers practically nothing from his adult life. His music, friends, all his past including the memory of his daughter are a blur in his fragile mind. All he has left is the imagination of a ten year old boy. As he drifts away into coma, it seems impossible to get back what he has lost. Or is it?
Imaginaerum creates a musical fantasy world in the vein of David Lynch, Neil Gaiman, and Tim Burton. The movie is an innovative mixture of story-telling and music, an extraordinary tale of the power of imagination and life itself - a true emotional rollercoaster ride!
There are some questions we must ask ourselves before entering the world of Imaginaerum. What is most important in life? Can the power of memories protect us during our last moments? Will our imagination help us find the spark of life in the deepest darkness? Can we still find love after bitter forgiveness?
Shot and post-produced in Canada, the movie was directed by Stobe Harju and produced by Solar Films, and features appearances by NIGHTWISH members. The screenplay is based on a wild vision that Tuomas Holopainen, the mastermind of the band, devised after the album Dark Passion Play came out in 2007.
"I thought of how we could take our expression that had already became pretty ambitious and grandiose to the next level, and that's when I knew I wanted to tell a story, and to tell it with love and piety."
According to Holopainen, finishing the movie has been an eventful and challenging journey that has sometimes demanded superhuman dedication from the production crew.
"I want to already thank everyone from the bottom of my heart. Together we've managed to create something innovative, strange, and timeless", Holopainen states.
Order your Blu-ray + DVD combo pack of Imaginaerum from the Nuclear Blast USA Online Shop: https://goo.gl/pHUZuS
ABOUT NIGHTWISH
Hugely influential, unique, and categorically unrivaled in the heavy metal pantheon, Finland-based symphonic master storytellers NIGHTWISH continue to expand the breadth and scope of their artistic vision with each successive release. Having received over sixty Gold and Platinum awards and selling more than seven million albums worldwide, theirs is an esteemed place among Finland's most successfully exported rock bands.
An avid reader whose childhood aspiration was to become a biologist, NIGHTWISH band leader, song composer, founding member, and keyboard player Tuomas Holopainen cites the works of American humanist, poet, and essayist Walt Whitman, English author & journalist Christopher Hitchens, and English evolutionary biologist & writer, Professor Richard Dawkins as inspirations to the themes explored in the new material that became the band's forthcoming epic 78-minute album for 2015, Endless Forms Most Beautiful.
The goals for this collection of songs were threefold: 1) To reflect the bliss of existence and its temporary character; 2) To capture the poetic nature of science; and 3) To musically illustrate the capacity of science to be profoundly spiritual. To that end, NIGHTWISH befittingly took up residence in the wilderness of Hattula, Finland with producer Tero "TeeCee" Kinnunen to record their eighth studio release. The album title itself is an excerpt from the writings of English naturalist Charles Darwin, best known for his contributions to evolutionary theory via his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.
A milestone in their 20-year career, Endless Forms Most Beautiful is resplendent in a sophisticated beauty and proudly features the participation of London's The Metro Voices choir group, London's Young Musicians Children's Choir, and the Orchestre De Grandeur led by the esteemed orchestral arranger Pip Williams, who teaches Music and Music Technology at the London College of Music.
In the album's opening track, "Shudder Before The Beautiful," we hear the regal voice of narrator Richard Dawkins, who also recites the Charles Darwin passage that gave the album its name in the album's grandiose 24-minute closing track, "The Greatest Show On Earth," which takes its name from the title of Professor Dawkins' 2009 book on evolution. An endeavour demanding that attention be paid to the rich detail in its spoken words, lyrics, and background noises, Endless Forms Most Beautiful includes the sounds of animal life on Earth as did the Voyager Golden Records on the two space probes launched into interstellar space in 1977. The digital single for "Elán" appropriately includes a bonus track entitled "Sagan," a musical tribute to American cosmologist, astronomer, and astrophysicist Carl Sagan who hosted the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage. This program - whose impact continues to radiate around the world - was re-launched as Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey in 2014 with new host American cosmologist and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
The compositions on Endless Forms Most Beautiful are on-par with an emotionally engaging film score and brilliantly showcase the talented voice of NIGHTWISH's electrifying Dutch frontwoman Floor Jansen, who was announced as an official member of the band ' along with British multi-instrumentalist Troy Donockley ' in October of 2014
Endless Forms Most Beautiful urges us to remember that our time on Earth is fleeting, to embrace the opportunities to gaze at the Milky Way on a cold winter's night, to ponder the unfathomable vastness of space! and most importantly, to share such moments with the people we love in this limited time we're granted on this "pale blue dot" we call home.
"At the back of our brains, there is a forgotten blaze or burst of astonishment at our own existence. The object of the artistic and the spiritual life is to dig for this submerged sunrise of wonder." - G.K. Chesterton
NIGHTWISH members include:
· Floor Jansen - Vocals
· Tuomas Holopainen - Keyboards
· Marco Hietala ' Bass & Vocals
· Emppu Vuorinen - Guitar
· Troy Donockley - Pipes, Flutes, Whistles
· Kai Hahto - Drums
Visit NIGHTWISH online at www.NIGHTWISH.com.
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Follow: Twitter.com/NIGHTWISHBAND
Watch: www.youtube.com/NIGHTWISHOFFICIAL
