Welcome to Imaginaerum!

[C.]

Can't wait. The closer the days get, the longer they seem.

 

[St Enigma]

NIGHTWISH Bassist / Vocalist MARCO HIETALA

From Iron To Imaginarium

Posted on Saturday, June 04, 2011 at 06:11:27

By Carl Begai

source: http://www.bravewords.com/features/1000972

If you wish to read the whole article about Marcos whatnots with Tarot, plesae click the link above. This is the part concerning Nightwish and Imaginarium only.

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Hietala’s focus is now on the forthcoming Nightwish album, Imaginarium. Still a work in progress, it’s not expected to surface until the end of this year or early 2012.

“I’ve recorded all my stuff,” he reveals. “All my vocals and basses are done, a couple acoustic guitar things. And the mixes for those parts have also been done, already.”

With regards to the extended wait for Imaginarium, Hietala admits he’s in the same boat as the fans and is chomping at the bit to hear the final product.

“That sucks for me personally,” he says of the wait, “but the reason for that is we still have the movie in the works as well, and it’s going to take some time for it to be finished. The album and the movie go pretty much hand-in-hand because the whole movie is built around the music of the album. We decided to push the release so that we can put them out together.”

Imaginarium is the next blockbuster step of the Nightwish legacy, guaranteed to put the buzz surrounding the previous album, Dark Passion Play, to shame when it hits. Things have gotten to the point where it’s not hard to imagine Hietala considers Tarot a needed vacation from the insanity of being part of Nightwish’s biggest ever metal export.



“Yeah, that’s true. With Nightwish, I’m all for the ambition that’s behind the whole thing. It’s really interesting to do all that. I’m waiting with my tongue hanging out for all the personal shoots for the movie, but Tarot gives me the chance to put my feet back on the ground, playing clubs where the people are right in front of my face. I’m actually able to put the cables in my own bass gear, which is a nice change (laughs).”

“I love playing anywhere, don’t get me wrong, but I still love the clubs. It’s close and intimate, it’s where you get the best vibe and the best groove. And, of course, with the clubs you usually get the best sound… depending on the equipment (laughs). The big halls are always problematic.”

Asked to give folks an idea of what’s in store with Imaginarium, without pissing off the powers that be by letting too many cats out of a very big bag, Hietala does his best:

“I have an idea of it, but I’m not sure how to put that into words (laughs). Big and bombastic, there’s going to be that stuff. People will be able to recognize the music as Nightwish, but I think if there’s something we managed to do differently this time it’s overcome the preconceptions of what this band should sound like. There’s a hell of a lot of musical variety on the album, and for myself I can honestly say that when we were doing Dark Passion Play – rehearsing and all that – I was sure it was going to be a good album. This time around, when we started rehearsing these songs, I was immediately sure about the same thing maybe ten times more (laughs). I just have a feeling it’s going to be a killer album.”

Once released, the Nightwish touring machine will be fired up for another long haul, but it won’t be as intense a schedule as the one for Dark Passion Play.

“We have to take things like our families into consideration for the next tour, so we’ll have to work the schedules. This time around I don’t think we’re going to be two years of touring. We’ve also figured out that if we’re doing four weeks in a row, we should keep a minimum of three weeks at home for those of us that have families. I think we all needed a real vacation after the last tour. We had to totally clean out our systems after that. So, in a way this will be a new Nightwish that you’ll be seeing on the road.”

 

[C.]

Sounds great!

 

[St Enigma]

.



Tuomas Studio diary update


Source: Tuomas Holopainen June 9. 2011, 13:55


After three years of brainstorming and songwriting, over a year of rehearsing, arranging and studio work, this triumph of musical passion and piety is finally ready to be mastered. Yesterday, after a six-week mixing session in Studio C at Finnvox, I listened the whole thing from start to finish alone for the first time, and couldn't make heads nor tails of it. It's the same old story - the same feeling of bottomless emptiness that has marked the completion of all previous albums. We could have honed the songs till Armageddon, but at some point you just have to let go and start admiring the scenery. This time, the landscape consists of 13 songs totalling 75 minutes. I think I'll probably be able to savour the end result only after a couple of months of mixing detox, but the encouraging comments by those near to me assure that it is a decent album. One person who heard Imaginarium called it "the greatest adventure he ever heard with his two ears".


There's clearly more grin to the new album than on the last one, more funfair, Moomins, smoky taverns, and twisted landscapes. It equals the Milky Way in width and breath, even according to our standards.


As Markus Selin put it: "Now you've really gone and emptied the bag of tricks!"


We're now going to get some distance to the album before mastering it later in the autumn. Meanwhile, we're going to be busy designing the cover, completing the instrumental and orchestral versions of the album, planning the upcoming tour, shooting the movie, and digesting the audio bloat. An excellent cure for the latter should be peaceful country atmosphere, fishing, and following the games of the current pesäpallo season. (By the way, during the home games of Kiteen Pallo, the entry music will be a remix consisting of the main riff and chorus of song number 11 off Imaginarium.)


Big thanks and bear hugs to the whole band for their patience; to Mikko Karmila and Tee Cee Kinnunen for their forbearance, craftsmanship and enormous amount of work; and in advance to Mika Jussila for the finishing touch! It's been a magnificent journey so far. Big thanks to you, too, for living with us through this process and having faith in what's to come. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.



Tuomas

Kitee, June 5th, 2011



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[C.]

Wow, sounds great! Won't be long now before we can all hear it.

 

[Stingray11214]

This CD sounds like it is going to be sick.

 

[C.]

Indeed!

 

[St Enigma]

Variety.com reveals that U$3.7 million (2.5 million Euro) has been budgeted for the Imaginarium movie. The CD is not included in this.


Source Blabbermouth.net

NIGHTWISH's 'Imaginarium' Movie Receives Finnish Grant - June 14, 2011

According to Variety.com, NIGHTWISH's much-anticipated musical "Imaginarium" is one of the projects which have received grants from the Finnish government institution called the Finnish Film Foundation. The movie, directed by Stobe Harju, about an old man on his deathbed who glimpses a childhood dream in which he refuses to grow old, and fights aging with his imagination, will get $575,000 toward its $3.7 million budget.

The Finnish Film Foundation grants support for professional Finnish film production. The Foundation's goal is to promote high-quality, versatile and unique Finnish film. The support can be granted for feature-length, short and episodic fiction, documentary, animation and children's films.

The production support is granted for the writing of a film script, development of a film project, the actual production of a film and for the marketing and distribution of the film in Finland. The Foundation also grants post-release support on the basis of a film's total attendance.

If all goes well, NIGHTWISH's "Imaginarium" album will be released in early 2012, to be followed by the movie at some point further down the line. The first single off the album as well as the trailer for the film should arrive well before the end of 2011.

In a May 2011 posting on NIGHTWISH's official web site, it was revealed that "location scouting" for the "Imaginarium" movie was already underway. In addition, the production crew was "strengthened by people who have extensive knowledge of post-production technology." This was considered to be crucial, because the shoot and post-production are expected to be extremely complex and technically challenging. One of the characters in the movie — which "will surely be remembered by many a NIGHTWISH fan," according to a posting on the band's web site — will also need special attention from the animation department.

On the topic of the movie score, it was revealed that NIGHTWISH keyboardist/main songwriter Tuomas Holopainen was working on variations with Petri Alanko, renowned for his prize-winning music for the "Alan Wake" video game. The score will be based on the songs on the album and their main themes in a way that — like many other things with the "Imaginarium" movie — is a first in the history of motion pictures.

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[C.]

^I also linked this at the OSA site.

 

[St Enigma]

Nightwish official Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/notes/nightwish/imaginarium-update-782011/10150246433826367

Imaginarium Update - 08.07.2011.


Nightwish Aug 7. 2011 7:44
.



Dear friends of Imaginarium

Secretly we all hoped that at some point we would be able to say this aloud: The Dream is about to become reality! It`s been a hard battle beyond all measures, as it is in all projects this size, but finally creativity and heart took over the evil called Money.

Imaginarium will be shot in September in a location we still need to keep as a secret but it will be quite far from our homely Finland & Sweden.

The casting of the characters is now done. The cast is chosen not only because of their talent but because of the personal passion of everyone involved. The actors and their representatives have been overly enthusiastic about the auditions after reading the script. We believe many of you will be very surprised once you see the final result and the story behind it. This long journey began more than 3 years ago, and neither Nightwish or Stobe had a clear idea of where the path would lead. The script is now fantastic. It`s about Life, and the little spark of light you see during the darkest and most hopeless times. The same spark we`ve had to find over and over again during the process of making this film happen.

The production crew is a group of professionals with one aim only: To realize the original vision of Imaginarium that Tuomas and Stobe had. All the pieces of the puzzle are now on the tables, and the building of the props, costume design, schedule planning, special fx production, dialogue & band performance rehearsals, etc. has begun.

It`s easy to shed some tears while writing this, since we now know the story will have an ending after all.


"She spins around elegantly, softly. The chords are now found and something that was broken never needed to be fixed."

.

 

[C.]

Sounds awesome! I just hope the shooting of the film doesn't push back the release of the album.

 

[St Enigma]

Well, why would it? They have all the financial resources secured, the casting for the film is ready, and shooting with actors is scheduled to begin in September. The movie is a Solar Films Inc production and it hasn't a release date yet, only we know from Tuomas's interview that the plan is to get it out "on the 1st half of 2012".

Nuclear Blast has the date for the Imaginarium CD release set on Jan 13. 2012 in their recently mailed album catalogue.

Everything looks very good now

 

[C.]

Yeah, I saw your post at Nightwish forum about the release date after reading this. Doesn't give me much time to learn the new songs before the L.A. show. Especially if the January 13th release date is just for Europe. It wouldn't be the first time a Nightwish album was released in the U.S. after a tour, like what happened with Once.

 

[St Enigma]

Petri R M Alanko is a Finnish musician who is known for his music for videogames and arrangements for a number of other artists, bands and orchestras.

He is also know by the artist name "Peter Lowland" on some of his works' credits.

Currently he is working with the score of the upcoming film "Nightwish Imagimnarium".

The text quoted below is taken from his blog at http://www.peterlowland.com/blog/?p=480

Posted by Petri Alanko on August 8, 2011 at 6:15 pm.


Time does fly. Seems that there’s been just too much to do. Always a good excuse.

I started working on a movie score a few months back – a movie more or less based on a yet unreleased album by Nightwish (it’s coming out in 2012, I think). The screenplay and the whole plot is just simply brilliant, and Mr. Stobe Harju, one of the manuscript writers too, directs it. You probably knew every word of this already, if you’ve been following either the news, Tuomas Holopainen’s or Stobe Harju’s twitter account or visited the Nightwish Official Website. The whole concept of this score is a bit different from everything else, a bit dogmatic as well, some might say: I’m using Nightwish’s album multitrack data as my raw material – and only a little else. I’d say the percentage is 80/20 for NW, clearly. There’s just so much to build onto, so many building bricks. The only evil thing is the toughest question I’m facing on every track: where the hell to start from? What’s the ground zero for each song? You could turn every song into a duck – or a unicorn, easily. Every piece has enough stuff for that.

I turned out every song had two or three “hooks” that seemed to talk in a clear language. They quite seldom were melodic motives, though, usually they were just some odd noisy bits and pieces that immediately triggered the train of thoughts – and sometimes I just listened to a whole orchestra track thru a double bass channel, in mono. Thru an unmerciful compressor. After making very comprehensive memos of everything, every track, every song, I had a clear picture of what’s where. The initial transfer from ProTools to Logic took a month – of course, I made my notes at the same time. Also, I created a set of Kontakt 4 instruments on the fly, grabbing a straight note there and another from here, the usual sample stuff. I’m not in my comfort zone now, as I’m depending on solely someone else’s work of art, and am willingly, knowingly, trying to steer away from the I’m-replacing-everything-with-my-output easy solution lane (which everyone, including me, would hate eventually). Everything gets treated. Really, really mangled, to find the right patina for the existing colour. I’m not destroying Tuomas’s brilliant work, I’m building something new using existing material. Call it reinterpretation, whatever, but I can guarantee they’re not just mere remixes. And there will be no dance beats. (At least not yet.)

(By the way, as a sidenote, I’d like to encourage the software developers to finally fix the frigging, effing, bugs that prevent the AAF transfer from working. Thank you. It’s not working no matter everybody tries to say. Not at least from ProTools to Logic.)

So, I’m in “under construction” mode right now. It’s a funny state of mind in which I seem to be unable to find time for shaving alone. Also, during this phase I’m also consuming vast amounts of green tea and find sleeping a hard job. I’ve been thru these phases so many times that I’m already adjusting my mind for the misery of giving up, leaving the project, you know, the moving-on-phase. Luckily, it’s still months away and I’m enjoying the energy, but I recognize the pattern.

Also, before I even started about thinking about starting to think about thinking about Imaginarium, I laid my hands on a few game soundtracks and in addition to those, I also had a chance to collaborate with my #1 person to collaborate with, DJ Orkidea, on his upcoming album. I even wrote a series of blog articles for every single track I was involved with, but decided to postpone them until the release gets closer. It’s going to be some really, really hardcore nerdy read, but I feel that opening my bag of tricks is not equal to letting my mind slip away from me. I’m using my tools my way, according to my taste – someone else will use the same exact tools in a totally different way. One shouldn’t fear sharing the knowledge (if such thing exists).

.

 

[C.]

Sounds like great news! And maybe in the future, our little joke about an Imaginarium video game won't be so much of a joke after all.

 

[ben_uez]

Imaginarium will be released before the end of this year

 

[St Enigma]

^ That's right, it's on the official website.

And this news from Nuclearblast.de also confirms it:

NIGHTWISH re-sign a new deal with NUCLEAR BLAST RECORDS!

2011-08-22 00:00 - Nuclear Blast Records is proud to anounce, that the Finnish metal heroes NIGHTWISH have signed a new record deal with the German based label.

The next big project will be the release of the new NIGHTWISH record „Imaginarium“, which will be released by the end of this year, in december 2011.

Bandleader Tuomas Holopainen comments: " We are very happy to continue working with the Nuclear Bast - family! Our collaboration started on a friendship basis and continues to do so. I was utterly happy and relieved to see they truly understood what "Imaginarium" is all about, and we seem to share similar profound enthusiasm towards it. I feel privileged working with such people who, despite the infinite maze of business they must handle properly, still have a huge heart for Music itself. "

Andy Siry, Head Of A&R and Label Manager of Nuclear Blast adds: „We are very happy that Nightwish and Nuclear Blast Records can continue as a team. NIGHTWISH became the biggest success of our label and everyone in the band, their management and crew also became trustful and close friends. For us, it is a pleasure to work with such highly gifted musicians and a genius like Tuomas Holopainen, as a songwriter and composer. We also thank KingFoo Management for their believe and the great relationship between all of us. We are looking forward to the next releases with the band, starting with the upcoming masterpiece „Imaginarium“, which is another big step for this visionary band, which is simply outstanding and brilliant.“

It also means that the first single should be out around late October or early November at the latest.


.

 

[ben_uez]

WTF? They changed the Album/film title into Imaginaerum???

 

[St Enigma]

A Spanish company has "Imaginarium" registered as their trademark, at least in Spain and maybe in some other countries. Their lawyers approached Nightwish with a letter claiming unauthorized use of their registered trademark. The band's lawyers investigated the issue and cleared up that the claim would not hold at court. Nevertheless, the band decided to avoid useless legal process which would only lead into waste of time and money, hence the simple solution by altering the spelling of the CD and movie name.

 

[ben_uez]

fuck those companies!