Airs - Annabelle
from ProgSphere's Progstravaganza Compilation of Awesomeness - Part X by Prog Sphere
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about
Brockmann/Andrade is the collaborative writing team of multi-instrumental recording artist and composer Steve Brockmann (Bredstedt, Germany) and freelance writer/editor George Andrade (Fall River, MA, USA). In 2008 (or thereabouts), George approached Steve with the idea of writing an album from a subplot to a novel that he had planned to write based loosely on the “punishment” of the Manisses Indians on Block Island, Rhode Island for the “accidental” murder of the captain of a trading vessel by a chieftain’s son and the subsequent “claim by right of conquest” and resettlement thereafter. Great idea, huh?
It was a book that was to deal with the individual mistakes that can bring down families and communities (and nations) and become the sins of fathers visited upon sons … and the transcendence of this guilt of lineage by ultimately reconciling one’s self-perception with one’s reality and coming to terms with the “space between the bars” of such self-imposed prisons. It was about a miller and stonemason’s son who returns home from prison to mend the walls and fences that he has destroyed and soon learns to speak of wind and air – not stone and mortar – and through the help of those he’s injured understands that our hearts are on strings … as his father had always dreamed. How rock n roll is that?
The idea quickly grew from a concept album to a full blown rock opera and was named, well, “Airs – A Rock Opera” – and Brockmann/Andrade was born.
Steve Brockmann has written 74 minutes of exciting and emotional music that runs the gamut of rock, metal, blues, pop, gospel and even cinematic score in a classic rock opera style that has been described by some as a “mixture of Eloy and Camel and Savatage” and “Toto-esque AOR-flavored hard rock, utilizing progressive twists and turns a la Spock’s Beard … as well as many a salute to the complex metal structures of Iron Maiden”. The story by George Andrade is Bradbury-esque and naturalistic presented through lyrics that are drawn as if working from a “word palette”, interspersed with narrative passages that set the stage for Brockmann’s oftentimes cinematic score.
“A theatrical feast for the heart and mind, “Airs – A Rock Opera” tells her story with simplicity and elegance: on a small circular island in the Atlantic, Owen Doane has rolled through a stop sign and driven a car carrying two tourists – a mother and her 9 year old daughter – from the road to strike a stone wall. The accident caused the girl to suffer injuries that paralyzed her from the waist down, confining her life to a chair and thereby forcing Owen’s father, Derrick Doane, to suffer the collapse of his company that had been built upon the Doane family heritage of pulling stone from fields before harvest and building walls after milling grain since they had first settled Manisses Island in 1664. Owen returns home from prison to mend the walls and fences that he has destroyed and soon learns to speak of wind and air – not stone and mortar – and through the help of those he’s injured understands that our hearts are on strings. A powerful, vintage ’70s/’80s rock score by Steve Brockmann conveys all of the loss, disillusionment, rekindled hope, reconciliation and ultimate redemption that is Owen’s journey and is rich with soaring cinematic passages!”
Steve and George first “met” on the Spock’s Beard message board awhile back (4+ years ago) where they also had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know Barry Thompson (The ANABASIS), John Fontana (Shadow Circus), Paul Adrian Villarreal (Sun Caged), Josh Sager (Din Within), Jamie McGregor (Singularity) and Martin Kornick (artwork for The ANABASIS) to name a but few … those were some pretty heady times filled with exciting company for all!
The musicians there would occasionally send music files back and forth to collaborate for personal satisfaction as well as for charity (The Tsunami Projekt, being the most famous) and George would always be “that guy” on the outside looking in, jumping up and down at the perimeter of the circle hoping to one day be permitted to join in! Well, after much hinting on his part that day eventually came – the group decided to let “the writer guy” take a shot at writing lyrics to a song. He was thrilled when his words were well received and it was soon thereafter that he received an email from Steve Brockmann asking if he would consider writing lyrics to a song that he had written intended for his next solo album (Pools Under Ganymede, TBA).
George jumped at the chance and the song became “The Moment’s Eye” … Steve and George hit it off immediately and very quickly found that they saw eye to eye (no pun intended) artistically. They quickly realized, too, that they shared an emotional and aesthetic kinship as well as the uncanny ability to develop each others’ vision through their respective crafts. They also found that they each had the proclivity and the eye to tell stories through songs in complimentary ways; George’s lyrics tended to be narrative in nature and Steve’s music was sweeping and cinematic in scope (though firmly rooted in rock).
It was then that George decided (rather boldly) to approach Steve with the thought of perhaps writing an album together … he told him the idea that he had based upon a book he was developing and proceeded to send a 20 page, single-spaced synopsis in English (not Steve’s native tongue, of course) to Germany! A couple of weeks passed … and then George (who had been getting a bit worried) finally heard back from Steve who sent him an instrumental that was gorgeous, ornate and majestic – a perfect opening number! That evening, unable to sleep, George finally got up not long after midnight with the song swimming in his head and wrote the words to what would become the opening track (“Fateful Days”) of their debut rock opera … and they were off! Fateful days, indeed.
Steve assembled a magnificent cast of vocalists to perform the roles of the characters from “AIRS”; beginning with the lead “Owen”, Steve’s strategy was to cast the voices based upon the multiple emotional intensities required for the “scenes”/songs as well as the psychological undercurrents of the action – Paul Adrian Villarreal (Sun Caged), Gordon Tittsworth (Images of Eden/Dread The Forsaken), Tilman Eckelt (Grailknights), Cornelius Kappabani (Bifrost) and Jan Hoving (Stonefly/A. Vandenberg) all rose to the occasion and fleshed out the character superbly. Gordon Tittsworth also performed as “Derrick” (Owen’s father) while Cornelius Kappabani played the roles of ”Derrick”, “Craig” (Owen’s brother) and “The Islanders”. The lead female role of “Annabelle” was performed beautifully, soulfully by Floor Kraaijvanger (Superfloor/Floored) and the role of young “Hannah” was tenderly portrayed by Antila Thomsen.
The band of musicians was just as impressive with Steve performing all guitars, bass and keyboards except for bass on “The Great Salt Pond” played by his brother Christoph Brockmann (North Band – Germany) and special guest appearances by Dave Meros who played bass on two songs (“Annabelle” and “Flight II”) and Alan Morse who provided his signature guitar effects and sailing solos to the finale (“Flight II”). The drums were played by Jochen Ohl (North Band – Germany) with Phil Robertson (Warner, Polygram, Electra, EMI, Atlantic session player) behind the kit on “Grounded II”.
The album was recorded and mixed by Steve Brockmann at his Fencesound Music Studios, Nordfriesland, Germany and mastered by Andy Horn at The Red Room, Berolzheim, Germany.
Floor Kraaijvanger and Jan Hoving were recorded at EDGETIP recording studio, Arnhem, Netherlands by Raoul Soentken. Gordon Tittsworth was recorded at Astral Sun Studios in Red Lion, PA, USA. Paul Adrian Villarreal was recorded in a Large Wooden Badger in KluBerath, Germany. Antila Thomsen, Tilman Eckelt and Cornelius Kappabani were recorded by Steve Brockmann at Fencesound Music Studios, Nordfriesland, Germany. Alan Morse was recorded in Monrovia, CA, USA. Dave Meros was recorded at Pollo Del Mar in Fair Oaks, CA, USA. Phil Robertson was recorded at Crawlspace in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Tony Kost, Seann Jackson, Leigh Andrade and Nicolette Collard-Andrade were recorded in Providence, RI, USA and Fall River, MA, USA by George Andrade.
Album art was designed by Matt Willett (www.mattwillettdesign.com).
Please visit the official website (due to launch during week Feb 5): airs-arockopera.com
For daily updates and coverage of the release please visit the official Facebook page: www.facebook.com/AIRS.Brockmann.Andrade
Brockmann/Andrade are proudly self-released under Fencesound Music: www.fencesound.de
“Airs – A Rock Opera” will be available for immediate delivery from Fencesound Music as well as for sale in all major retail outlets and digital download sites on February 29, 2012.
The track listing for “Airs – A Rock Opera” is:
Now I Know
1. Fateful Days (featuring Paul Adrian Villareal)
2. Grounded (featuring Gordon Tittsworth)
3. Kites (featuring Tilman Eckelt)
4. Flight (featuring Cornelius Kappabani)
5. Current Events
– Winds of Change (featuring Gordon Tittsworth)
– Heirs (featuring Gordon Tittsworth & Cornelius Kappabani)
– Winds of Change II (featuring Cornelius Kappabani)
– Errs (featuring Gordon Tittsworth)
Book of Airs
6. History (instrumental)
7. Heritage (featuring Gordon Tittsworth)
8. Experiments (featuring Gordon Tittsworth)
9. Floating (instrumental)
The Flyer
10. Annabelle (featuring Jan Hoving)
11. The Center (featuring Floor Kraaijvanger & Gordon Tittsworth)
12. Fateful Days II (featuring Antila Thomsen)
13. Hannah (featuring Cornelius Kappabani & Antila Thomsen)
Airs
14. The Great Salt Pond (featuring Floor Kraaijvanger)
15. Grounded II (featuring Gordon Tittsworth & spoken cast)
16. Kites II (instrumental)
17. Flight II (featuring Floor Kraaijvanger, Antila Thomsen & Cornelius Kappabani)
18. Owen (featuring Paul Adrian Villarreal)
Steve Brockmann, music composer, arranger and producer, is a multi-instrumentalist who has played an active role in Northern Germany’s music scene since the early 1980s. Amongst others, he has played support gigs for such rock legends as Uriah Heep, Moody Marsden Band, and Hawkwind. Steve currently concentrates his musical work on various projects in his personal studio. Steve’s releases include “Don’t Sing” (2001), “Broskro Skrobro” (2002), “Expected Errors” (2007). He has also composed and contributed charity singles for The Haiti Project (“For You” 2010), a collaborative album of 40 musicians and bands including Neal Morse, Roine Stolt, Dave Meros and IZZ, and for Förderkreis für krebskranke Kinder und Jugendliche. e.V., (“For Those Who Left, For Those Who Came (Christmas Eve)” 2011), a center for young children and teens living with cancer in Northern Germany.
George Andrade, story, lyrics and narratives, is the lyricist and Executive Producer for the progressive metal band The ANABASIS (10T Records). He has written adult and children’s fiction, reviewed albums for such progressive bands as Mars Hollow, Shadow Circus and Relocator, reviews novels for HorrorNews.net, provides critical readings for screenplays and is a freelance editor. He is listed in the Locus Magazine author index and has been an artist-in-residence for Very Special Arts Rhode Island. He also wrote, produced and directed the short film “Supports’ which won a RI Cable Award for “Best Entertainment/Variety” in 1992.
It was a book that was to deal with the individual mistakes that can bring down families and communities (and nations) and become the sins of fathers visited upon sons … and the transcendence of this guilt of lineage by ultimately reconciling one’s self-perception with one’s reality and coming to terms with the “space between the bars” of such self-imposed prisons. It was about a miller and stonemason’s son who returns home from prison to mend the walls and fences that he has destroyed and soon learns to speak of wind and air – not stone and mortar – and through the help of those he’s injured understands that our hearts are on strings … as his father had always dreamed. How rock n roll is that?
The idea quickly grew from a concept album to a full blown rock opera and was named, well, “Airs – A Rock Opera” – and Brockmann/Andrade was born.
Steve Brockmann has written 74 minutes of exciting and emotional music that runs the gamut of rock, metal, blues, pop, gospel and even cinematic score in a classic rock opera style that has been described by some as a “mixture of Eloy and Camel and Savatage” and “Toto-esque AOR-flavored hard rock, utilizing progressive twists and turns a la Spock’s Beard … as well as many a salute to the complex metal structures of Iron Maiden”. The story by George Andrade is Bradbury-esque and naturalistic presented through lyrics that are drawn as if working from a “word palette”, interspersed with narrative passages that set the stage for Brockmann’s oftentimes cinematic score.
“A theatrical feast for the heart and mind, “Airs – A Rock Opera” tells her story with simplicity and elegance: on a small circular island in the Atlantic, Owen Doane has rolled through a stop sign and driven a car carrying two tourists – a mother and her 9 year old daughter – from the road to strike a stone wall. The accident caused the girl to suffer injuries that paralyzed her from the waist down, confining her life to a chair and thereby forcing Owen’s father, Derrick Doane, to suffer the collapse of his company that had been built upon the Doane family heritage of pulling stone from fields before harvest and building walls after milling grain since they had first settled Manisses Island in 1664. Owen returns home from prison to mend the walls and fences that he has destroyed and soon learns to speak of wind and air – not stone and mortar – and through the help of those he’s injured understands that our hearts are on strings. A powerful, vintage ’70s/’80s rock score by Steve Brockmann conveys all of the loss, disillusionment, rekindled hope, reconciliation and ultimate redemption that is Owen’s journey and is rich with soaring cinematic passages!”
Steve and George first “met” on the Spock’s Beard message board awhile back (4+ years ago) where they also had the pleasure of meeting and getting to know Barry Thompson (The ANABASIS), John Fontana (Shadow Circus), Paul Adrian Villarreal (Sun Caged), Josh Sager (Din Within), Jamie McGregor (Singularity) and Martin Kornick (artwork for The ANABASIS) to name a but few … those were some pretty heady times filled with exciting company for all!
The musicians there would occasionally send music files back and forth to collaborate for personal satisfaction as well as for charity (The Tsunami Projekt, being the most famous) and George would always be “that guy” on the outside looking in, jumping up and down at the perimeter of the circle hoping to one day be permitted to join in! Well, after much hinting on his part that day eventually came – the group decided to let “the writer guy” take a shot at writing lyrics to a song. He was thrilled when his words were well received and it was soon thereafter that he received an email from Steve Brockmann asking if he would consider writing lyrics to a song that he had written intended for his next solo album (Pools Under Ganymede, TBA).
George jumped at the chance and the song became “The Moment’s Eye” … Steve and George hit it off immediately and very quickly found that they saw eye to eye (no pun intended) artistically. They quickly realized, too, that they shared an emotional and aesthetic kinship as well as the uncanny ability to develop each others’ vision through their respective crafts. They also found that they each had the proclivity and the eye to tell stories through songs in complimentary ways; George’s lyrics tended to be narrative in nature and Steve’s music was sweeping and cinematic in scope (though firmly rooted in rock).
It was then that George decided (rather boldly) to approach Steve with the thought of perhaps writing an album together … he told him the idea that he had based upon a book he was developing and proceeded to send a 20 page, single-spaced synopsis in English (not Steve’s native tongue, of course) to Germany! A couple of weeks passed … and then George (who had been getting a bit worried) finally heard back from Steve who sent him an instrumental that was gorgeous, ornate and majestic – a perfect opening number! That evening, unable to sleep, George finally got up not long after midnight with the song swimming in his head and wrote the words to what would become the opening track (“Fateful Days”) of their debut rock opera … and they were off! Fateful days, indeed.
Steve assembled a magnificent cast of vocalists to perform the roles of the characters from “AIRS”; beginning with the lead “Owen”, Steve’s strategy was to cast the voices based upon the multiple emotional intensities required for the “scenes”/songs as well as the psychological undercurrents of the action – Paul Adrian Villarreal (Sun Caged), Gordon Tittsworth (Images of Eden/Dread The Forsaken), Tilman Eckelt (Grailknights), Cornelius Kappabani (Bifrost) and Jan Hoving (Stonefly/A. Vandenberg) all rose to the occasion and fleshed out the character superbly. Gordon Tittsworth also performed as “Derrick” (Owen’s father) while Cornelius Kappabani played the roles of ”Derrick”, “Craig” (Owen’s brother) and “The Islanders”. The lead female role of “Annabelle” was performed beautifully, soulfully by Floor Kraaijvanger (Superfloor/Floored) and the role of young “Hannah” was tenderly portrayed by Antila Thomsen.
The band of musicians was just as impressive with Steve performing all guitars, bass and keyboards except for bass on “The Great Salt Pond” played by his brother Christoph Brockmann (North Band – Germany) and special guest appearances by Dave Meros who played bass on two songs (“Annabelle” and “Flight II”) and Alan Morse who provided his signature guitar effects and sailing solos to the finale (“Flight II”). The drums were played by Jochen Ohl (North Band – Germany) with Phil Robertson (Warner, Polygram, Electra, EMI, Atlantic session player) behind the kit on “Grounded II”.
The album was recorded and mixed by Steve Brockmann at his Fencesound Music Studios, Nordfriesland, Germany and mastered by Andy Horn at The Red Room, Berolzheim, Germany.
Floor Kraaijvanger and Jan Hoving were recorded at EDGETIP recording studio, Arnhem, Netherlands by Raoul Soentken. Gordon Tittsworth was recorded at Astral Sun Studios in Red Lion, PA, USA. Paul Adrian Villarreal was recorded in a Large Wooden Badger in KluBerath, Germany. Antila Thomsen, Tilman Eckelt and Cornelius Kappabani were recorded by Steve Brockmann at Fencesound Music Studios, Nordfriesland, Germany. Alan Morse was recorded in Monrovia, CA, USA. Dave Meros was recorded at Pollo Del Mar in Fair Oaks, CA, USA. Phil Robertson was recorded at Crawlspace in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Tony Kost, Seann Jackson, Leigh Andrade and Nicolette Collard-Andrade were recorded in Providence, RI, USA and Fall River, MA, USA by George Andrade.
Album art was designed by Matt Willett (www.mattwillettdesign.com).
Please visit the official website (due to launch during week Feb 5): airs-arockopera.com
For daily updates and coverage of the release please visit the official Facebook page: www.facebook.com/AIRS.Brockmann.Andrade
Brockmann/Andrade are proudly self-released under Fencesound Music: www.fencesound.de
“Airs – A Rock Opera” will be available for immediate delivery from Fencesound Music as well as for sale in all major retail outlets and digital download sites on February 29, 2012.
The track listing for “Airs – A Rock Opera” is:
Now I Know
1. Fateful Days (featuring Paul Adrian Villareal)
2. Grounded (featuring Gordon Tittsworth)
3. Kites (featuring Tilman Eckelt)
4. Flight (featuring Cornelius Kappabani)
5. Current Events
– Winds of Change (featuring Gordon Tittsworth)
– Heirs (featuring Gordon Tittsworth & Cornelius Kappabani)
– Winds of Change II (featuring Cornelius Kappabani)
– Errs (featuring Gordon Tittsworth)
Book of Airs
6. History (instrumental)
7. Heritage (featuring Gordon Tittsworth)
8. Experiments (featuring Gordon Tittsworth)
9. Floating (instrumental)
The Flyer
10. Annabelle (featuring Jan Hoving)
11. The Center (featuring Floor Kraaijvanger & Gordon Tittsworth)
12. Fateful Days II (featuring Antila Thomsen)
13. Hannah (featuring Cornelius Kappabani & Antila Thomsen)
Airs
14. The Great Salt Pond (featuring Floor Kraaijvanger)
15. Grounded II (featuring Gordon Tittsworth & spoken cast)
16. Kites II (instrumental)
17. Flight II (featuring Floor Kraaijvanger, Antila Thomsen & Cornelius Kappabani)
18. Owen (featuring Paul Adrian Villarreal)
Steve Brockmann, music composer, arranger and producer, is a multi-instrumentalist who has played an active role in Northern Germany’s music scene since the early 1980s. Amongst others, he has played support gigs for such rock legends as Uriah Heep, Moody Marsden Band, and Hawkwind. Steve currently concentrates his musical work on various projects in his personal studio. Steve’s releases include “Don’t Sing” (2001), “Broskro Skrobro” (2002), “Expected Errors” (2007). He has also composed and contributed charity singles for The Haiti Project (“For You” 2010), a collaborative album of 40 musicians and bands including Neal Morse, Roine Stolt, Dave Meros and IZZ, and for Förderkreis für krebskranke Kinder und Jugendliche. e.V., (“For Those Who Left, For Those Who Came (Christmas Eve)” 2011), a center for young children and teens living with cancer in Northern Germany.
George Andrade, story, lyrics and narratives, is the lyricist and Executive Producer for the progressive metal band The ANABASIS (10T Records). He has written adult and children’s fiction, reviewed albums for such progressive bands as Mars Hollow, Shadow Circus and Relocator, reviews novels for HorrorNews.net, provides critical readings for screenplays and is a freelance editor. He is listed in the Locus Magazine author index and has been an artist-in-residence for Very Special Arts Rhode Island. He also wrote, produced and directed the short film “Supports’ which won a RI Cable Award for “Best Entertainment/Variety” in 1992.
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from ProgSphere's Progstravaganza Compilation of Awesomeness - Part X,
track released April 8, 2012
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