LUCA TURILLI'S RHAPSODY Continuing Work On 'Ascending To Infinity'

In August 2011, RHAPSODY OF FIRE guitarist Luca Turilli and keyboardist Alex Staropoli announced their decision to go their separate ways.

Due to legal reasons, Staropoli will continue under the RHAPSODY OF FIRE name. Turilli, on the other hand, will make his future efforts available under the RHAPSODY moniker (RHAPSODY OF FIRE's original name),in which he will be joined by guitarist Dominique Leurquin, bassist Patrice Guers, and drummer Alex Holzwarth. A singer for the group has has yet to be announced.

LUCA TURILLI'S RHAPSODY will release a new album entitled "Ascending To Infinity" on June 29 via Nuclear Blast.

Commented the band: "In some days, Dominique and Patrice will start recording their guitar and bass parts in a French studio. Dominique is actually rehearsing the parts and on Friday, will start recording the rhythmic guitar of half album and a couple of lead parts too. Meanwhile, Luca is working on the second step of the arrangement process for each song, finalizing the keyboard parts and creating the sound design elements in his private home studio in Trieste, Italy. From tomorrow, he will start recording the rhythmic and the main lead guitars, too."

Said Luca: "The last part of the arrangement process is very long and emotionally demanding, but is also the most satisfying, from an artistic point of view.

"I just finished working on the keyboard parts of the song 'Dark Fate Of Atlantis', and on the sound effects needed to give breath and life to the same song. I needed almost one week to complete the last phase of the arrangements for it, but this is the amazing step necessarily needed to turn a song from normal into 'cinematic.'

"After many days and an infinite mind-blowing search between intimate sounds and apocalyptic textures and effects, it is time for me to disconnect from that kind of spiritual experience and finally relax starting to record some guitar parts, ha ha. From tomorrow, I will have then two computers open in front of me: one to record the guitar and the second to bounce the first files for Sebastian, our studio engineer.

"Just to let you understand the amount of work necessary in this case: for a typical RHAPSODY song of around six minutes like 'Dark Fate Of Atlantis', I will need around 12 hours to originate the audio files that then will be used for the mix.

"If you want to know more about these aspects related with the composition and arrangement process, I will just be happy to inform you from our band's Facebook page in the next days."

"Ascending To Infinity" track listing:

01. Quantum X
02. Ascending To Infinity
03. Dante’s Inferno
04. Excalibur
05. Tormento E Passione
06. Dark Fate Of Atlantis
07. Fantasia Gotica
08. Clash Of The Titans
09. Of Michael The Archangel And Lucifer's Fall
I. Alma Mundi
II. Fatum Mortalis
III. Ignis Divinus

The album will have a running time of around 65 minutes.

The limited-edition version of "Ascending To Infinity" will include two bonus tracks for 75 minutes of music, plus "many exclusive gifts," to be revealed very soon.

LUCA TURILLI'S RHAPSODY will embark on the "Ascending To Infinity" headlining tour in the fall.

In a recent interview, Turilli stated about "Ascending To Infinity", "Honestly, this album is very important for me, Alex Holzwarth, Patrice and Dominique and personally it is the one I always dreamed to record. The basic composition process lasted around five months. In this period of time I worked at the rhythm of 12-14 hours per day and, while very hard because very demanding mentally and spiritually, this was one of the most rewarding sessions of composition of my whole life. It rarely happened I had so much fun playing the guitar, the keyboards or my beloved piano and creating original classical parts, cinematic interludes, orchestrations and all the rest. Now all the songs are ready and I am actually in the process of arranging everything. As you know, I don't hire external people to orchestrate the music, but I do all by myself writing the music for each section of the orchestra, the choirs etc. and this sometimes can be a very long and hard process stealing a lot of time and energy. I can not deny that this is a very ambitious album, because of the investment, artistic vision etc., and all the people working on it, Nuclear Blast included, are thinking the same. That's why in the upcoming months of intensive studio work I want to go on dedicating myself night and day to it, without thinking to anything else."

Regarding the change in the production team for the LUCA TURILLI'S RHAPSODY album, Luca said, "After many years of work in Wolfsburg at the court of our friend Sascha Paeth, I decided to start this new artistic adventure with a different team of people. Sascha and the other friends of the Gate Studio (Miro, Olaf, Robert, Simon, etc.) are a winning team and their help in the past was really important for RHAPSODY. But it's since many years already that Alex and I took the productions in our hands becoming producers of our own albums, despite Sascha remaining always fundamental as engineer and mixer man. His mixes will remain legendary and our list of thanks will be never long enough for all the professional contribution he gave. All the years of work, fun and sufferance in the Gate studios of Wolfsburg will surely remain unforgettable and are carved in our heart. For LUCA TURILLI'S RHAPSODY and the new band adventure I decided to change the studio and the main man behind the console. We are now recording the new album at the Backyard Studio of Kempten, Germany. Our new engineer and main mixer man is the same owner of the studio and his name is Sebastian Roeder, the person who worked for RHAPSODY OF FIRE in the last worldwide tour making real miracles while mixing our music live. Apart from being a talented engineer, he is a great person and he shares with us the love for this style of music. To resume, the new album will be produced by me as usual, while Sebastian will take care of the engineering, mixing and mastering process."

On the topic of the singer for LUCA TURILLI'S RHAPSODY, Luca said, "As you can imagine, this will be one of the most important news to be given in the upcoming months, but for the moment we prefer to keep all top secret. Speaking about singers, please allow me to say a few words about Olaf Hayer, singer and talented voice of LUCA TURILLI, my old solo band. The truth is that, as many people could already imagine, I stopped my solo activity as LUCA TURILLI definitely, willing to dedicate myself to LUCA TURILLI'S RHAPSODY at full time. That's why I want to publicly thank Olaf for the fundamental contribution he gave to our solo albums. All the three albums of the trilogy entered the charts establishing some important records and this was possible mainly because of my friend Olaf. Who knows?! Maybe sooner or later we'll still have the chance to work together. Never say never."