NIGHTWISH SIDEPROJECT REVEALED
Tuomas Holopainen and Troy Donockley team up with Iona musicians on Auri.
“Auri has a message of optimism and a love of life.”
Nightwish’s Troy Donockley has confirmed more details about his new project with bandmate Tuomas Holopainen. Auri – which also features Finnish vocalist and Holopainen’s wife Johanna Kurkela – release their self-titled debut via Nuclear Blast on March 23, just two weeks after Nightwish’s Decades compilation and tour begins.
“We’ve been really secretive about the whole thing because we didn’t want people to think this was the end of Nightwish!” says the British multi-instrumentalist, who reveals that the project’s name comes from a character in Patrick Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicle book series.
“I’m sick of hearing bands saying,‘This album is quite dark,’ so we’ve gone full-on light,” he says. “Lyrically, Auri is quite complex but it has a message of optimism and a love of life, which carries on from the theme of Nightwish’s Endless Forms Most Beautiful. Musically, it’s celestialprogressive-wonderland-ethereal-pop-rock-based-ambientclassically-infused cosmic metal! Johanna’s voice is really unique – she’s a muse to both me and Tuomas.”
Kurkela – who also sang on Holopainen’s 2014 solo album, Music Inspired By The Life And Times Of Scrooge – and Donockey began writing the material that would become Auri back in 2011. Once Holopainen came on board, the project began to take shape and Donockley brought in his former Iona bandmates Frank van Essen and Phil Barker to help out with additional instrumentation. The 11-track album was mixed by Tim Oliver (Brian Eno/Sinead O’Connor) at Real World Studios last summer.
“It’s got flavours of my last solo album, The Madness Of Crowds, and Tuomas’ …Scrooge album,” says Donockley. “It has a cinematic sound: we have a live strings section, lots of grand pianos, atmospheric guitars, low whistles, multilayered voices – it’s very wide and orchestral, but Johanna floats above everything. One song, Desert Flower, is a duet between me and her and it really is killer: she transforms it.”
The Nightwish piper hopes he will have the opportunity to play the album live, but admits it’s unlikely happen anytime soon. “We’d love to do an
Auri show in the ruins of Tintagel
Castle in Cornwall [where some of the promotional photos were taken] but our Nightwish schedule is really wild now.”
A video for the lead single, Night 13, is due out before March. NRS