MORTIIS To Release Ghosts Of Europa Album In June; Title Track Music Video Streaming Now
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Iconic Norwegian artist, Mortiis, is pleased to reveal that he will be releasing his new studio album, Ghosts Of Europa, on June 26 via Prophecy Productions, making it his debut to the label.
In celebration, Mortiis is now unveiling the title track along with a thought-provoking music video. The clip was written and directed by Claudio Marino and can be found here.
Mortiis comments, “This song has tried many shapes and forms, until it finally sort of found itself. I never thought that it would end up this way. Strange, mysterious, and choral. It started out as a simple thing, a different song, with a different title, which got slowly de-constructed and altered. This did not happen due to dissatisfaction with the original, but because layers of new ideas appeared. As excited as I am about this new ‘entity’ and the way it shaped up, the title, that has already been in existence for years, feels slightly, and sadly, prophetic – although that was never my intention.”
With Ghosts Of Europa, the enigmatic Norwegian artistic entity, known as Mortiis, presents an album that he views as a creative liberation. During its long and winding creation process such concepts as genre, rules or experimenting with sounds dissolved while simply making music that reflected every conceivable idea on his mind without accepting any limitations became his guiding principle.
Of course, Mortiis’ musical handwriting is ever present. Echoes from the often quite divergent phases of his previous works can be found across Ghosts Of Europa. Yet, the creator of musical worlds left hardly a stone not turned in his epic quest for genuinely new ways of expression. As a result, this cinematic and visionary album often feels expansive, strange, and darkly dystopian. In this, Ghosts Of Europa reflects its maker’s struggles while creating the album – as for him, these tend to come into existence at the cost of friendships and relationships as well as much soul searching.
Ghosts Of Europa has also been shaped to some extent by the original idea that involved a collaboration of Mortiis with Stephan Groth from Apoptygma Berzerk based on their mutual fascination with the highly influential old German school of electronic music, and particularly Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze. When this fell apart, Mortiis decided to continue on his own and a long process of transforming the early recorded materials began.
Relics of this early stage remain in hints of the influences from Berlin as well as a host of guest contributions, but visions of bleak, desolate, and timeless alien landscapes warped and mutated the songs. This carried Ghosts Of Europa into spaces where Mortiis never existed before.
The cover artwork for Ghosts Of Europa was created by Nihil.
Ghosts Of Europa is available as a 60-page hardcover 2CD artbook incl. 8-track bonus CD, ltd. Gatefold XXX vinyl LP, Gatefold black vinyl LP, and Digipak CD.
Tracklisting:
“Ghosts Of Europa”
“Return To The Old Fields”
“The Faith That Fades Away”
“Violent Silence”
“Transcending Morpheus”
“Tundra, Heart Of Hell”
“Tribes Of Dystopia”
“Farewell Romero”
Mortiis has also teamed up with UADA for a very special co-headliner, featuring exclusive anniversary sets and supporting performances by Jerome Reuter’s Rome and Wraith Knight. Mortiis shall be performing songs from his groundbreaking 2001 full-length, The Smell Of Rain, along with other volumes of dystopian despair while UADA will be performing their seminal 2016 debut album Devoid Of Light in its entirety + a special Ceremonial Castings 30-year anniversary set featuring Wraith Knight. The full itinerary and ticket links can be found here.
