Steve Rothery, highly respected guitarist and founder member of UK prog giants Marillion, is proud to present his long awaited solo album 'The Ghosts of Pripyat'.
Rothery comments, "This album has been a long time coming. I had an offer to record a solo album during the recording of 'Misplaced Childhood' in 1985 and while making the 'Brave' album at Miles Copeland's chateau in France I was offered a deal to make an instrumental album for his "No Speak" label, however, I decided to record the first Wishing Tree album instead."
He continues, "Fast forward another twenty years and I'm invited to play at the annual Plovdiv guitar festival in October 2013. Having committed to the festival it left me with the small problem of what to play for an hour. "Blues in A" just wasn't going to cut it. I had a few strong ideas and got together for a couple of writing sessions with my good friend and fellow guitarist Dave Foster. Dave and I have a great musical chemistry which brought forth a lot of amazing music. After a couple of days rehearsal with the fantastic rhythm section of Leon Parr and Yatim Halimi I realised this was going to be something really special. The subsequent 'Live in Plovdiv' album and video from that performance hopefully gave an idea
of where I felt the finished album, 'The Ghosts of Pripyat', could go."
The cover image of the album is an aerial shot of Pripyat by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand with additional artwork by the legendary Lasse Hoile. The 7-track release includes fantastic guest performances from noted musician Steve Hackett on 'Morpheus' and 'The Old Man of the Sea', which also features a stunning solo by the much lauded Steven Wilson.
Set for release on September 22, the finished record will be available as a standard CD and a CD + DVD special edition digipack, via www.steverothery.com and www.marillion.com, as well as via digital platforms including iTunes. The special edition DVD contains a documentary and four live tracks filmed by Lasse Hoile at Real World Studios in Wiltshire, where the album was also recorded. In addition, it contains high resolution 24 bit/96K audio mixes of all seven album tracks. Fans can explore a fantastic range of photos from the studio online now at: www.steverothery.com/the-ghosts-of-pripyat-recording/.
Rothery credits the incredible success of his Kickstarter campaign (400% raised of his original target) with making the album possible, adding, "I have been amazed and humbled at the support I've received."
One of the most melodic and atmospheric guitarists around, fellow musicians may be interested to know that Rothery uses a special Vo-96 equipped Farida acoustic guitar in 'Morpheus', and in fact performed with the Vo-96 inventor Paul Vo earlier this year.
The Steve Rothery Band ~ Steve Rothery - Guitar, Dave Foster - Guitar, Leon Parr - Drums, Yatim Halimi - Bass Guitar, and Riccardo Romano - Keyboards ~ will hit the road in the UK shortly, with a special album release show on 20 September at Pendley Court in TRING, followed by four headline dates in November as follows: 5 Nov - GLASGOW Oran Mor, 6 Nov - MANCHESTER Band On The Wall, 7 Nov - BILSTON Robin 2, and 8 Nov - LONDON Bush Hall.
www.steverothery.com
