It was last summer when we found out that Nightwish (except from Anette who was pregnant at the time)had gathered to record the demo of the long awaited 7th studio album.In September,not long after Tuomas was joined by Anette(who had already given birth to to her second son Nemo)the demo was finished!
It was Thursday the 14th of October when Nightwish officially entered the studio and started recording the album beginning with the drums.After a few days when Jukka had recorded his part, it was time for Emppu to start recording the guitars.In the meantime Marco also recorded most of his bass parts.
On December 21st Tuomas wrote on the site wishing everyone happy holidays and also stating that they plan to reveal future plans in the end of January 2011.Despite that statement on the 1st of February Tuomas said that the "mobsters" are not letting him reveal any plans yet.
And then BAM!Out of nowhere when no oone expected it and only 9 days after the above statement a new post came where it revealed the plans for the new album!
IMAGINARIUM
The 7th studio album is called Imaginarium and a movie will be accompanying it!
The movie,as described on
Nightwish.com, i
s about a songwriter with an otherworldly imagination. He is an old man who still thinks he`s a young boy. While asleep he travels into his distant past where his dreams of old come back to him mixed to the young boy`s world of fantasy and music.
In his dreams the old man fights to find the memories most important to him.
The director of the film is Stobe Harju who has already worked with Nightwish for the music video of "The Islander".
The full-lenth movie will be produced by Solar films Inc. together with Nightwish.The shootings of the film were set to begin in the Spring with the release set for the Spring of 2012.
Then on the 14th of February Tuomas traveled to London where the Orchestra and choir would be recorded in the Angel studio.By the end of the week when all of those parts were recorded Tuomas wrote a studio diary about it,providing photos and a video,which you can find on Nightwish.com Then in the beginning of March it was time for Anette to record her vocals.Unfortunatelly after a fall she broke her rib and decided together with Tuomas that it would be better to postpone the recordings for a while.Tuomas however decided to record the keyboards for the album while Marco recorded his vocals. After that it was time for Mr. Troy Donockley to make his contribution to the album,and for some additional violins,percussions and tribal drums to be recorded.In the beginning of April when a month had already passed since Anette's accident, she traveled to Finland to record her vocals and after about a week in Finnvox studios the recordings for Imaginarium had all been done!
The mixing and mastering for the album is supposed to be over by the end of July and in the beginning of the fall the band members are going to shoot their cameo parts for the movie.
A single is expected to be released around the end of Fall, followed by the album in the beginning of January 2012!
The Imaginarium World tour is set to begin in the 21st of January in Los Angeles and it will be the only appearance of the band in the U.S.A till late 2012.
Personally, i can't wait for this album to be released!I think it will be better than Dark Passion Play mostly because it will be written exclusively for Anette's voice.I can't wait to listen to the almost-20-minutes-song. We also know that there are going to be two songs on Imaginarium which will have no orchestra at all.Despite loving the orchestra on Nightwish albums, i find the idea interesting and long to listen to them.Furthermore i can't wait to listen to the single and hope it won't be late in the fall where we will be able to listen to it!
The best thing for me is that Tuomas recently gave an interview to a greek(yes i'm from Greece) website and stated that he can't wait to see us (Greeks)next year!I haven't seen Nightwish live yet and i can't wait to see the world Greece in the concert schedule!(I just hope it's not on a crappy festival like last time they were in Greece since i heard that the organization was awful!) :-)
More Information about the Imaginarium album and movie can be found on the links below: