Planets + Persona Richard Barbieri

• 1 Solar Sea 07:30
• 2 New Found Land 07:18
• 3 Night of the Hunter 10:45
• 4 Interstellar Medium 05:38
• 5 Unholy 08:58
• 6 Shafts of Light 06:38
• 7 Solar Storm 06:22
• Total Runtime 53:09

Info for Planets + Persona

The Japan and Porcupine Tree keyboardist Richard Barbieri releases his most sonically expansive work to date, with a brand new album entitled Planets + Persona. It is the third Barbieri solo album, but the first to feature such a wide pallet of instrumentation. Vintage analogue synthesisers combine with acoustic performances and jazz elements. Twisted voices are always present, though not in a language we can recognise. Barbieri skilfully utilises the talents of a pan-European core of musicians to produce an album that marries synthesised sounds with organic instrumentation to conjure up vivid, colourful and allusive soundscapes. It’s a skilful commingling of texture and tone, mood and musicality.

Recorded in London, Italy and Sweden, this is Barbieri’s most ambitious solo work to date with a central theme of duality that runs through the album. The title alone – ‘Planets and Persona’ alludes to this, and the dialectic theme is a constant throughout the contrasting and shape-shifting sounds of the album. Take, for example, Night of the Hunter – inspired by Charles Laughton’s only directorial movie , the piece moves through subtle shifts of atmosphere and emphasis, through melodic, dream-like sequences through to harsher tones; it’s a piece that builds to a profound cumulative effect. Elsewhere, Solar Storm shifts gears artfully, with Percy Jones’ sometimes percussive bass work contrasting to the smoother synthesiser textures incisively. Barbieri’s purely solo Interstellar Medium shows that his ability to develop and realise a theme under his own auspices that underscores his innate creativity. It’s but one aspect of a thoroughly engrossing and immersive album.

Richard Barbieri, synthesizer, electric Piano, sampler, drum programming, sound design
Christian Saggese, acoustic guitar
Percy Jones, bass
Axel Crone, bass
Kjell Severinsson, drums, percussion
Grice Peters, kora
Luca Calabrese, trumpet
Klas Assarsson, vibraphone
Lisen Rylander Löve, voice, sound designer, omnichord, saxophone, kalimba
Grice Peters, voice
Steve Hogarth, voice
Suzanne Barbieri, voice
Tim Bowness, voice
Yukiko Taniguchi, voice

Engineered by Andrea Secchi, Mats Johansson, Stefano Quarta
Mixed by Richard Barbieri
Mastered by Simon Heyworth
Produced by Richard Barbieri

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This album contains no booklet.