New Ayreon THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING

Hi Ayreonauts!  In the year (!) since our last newsletter, Arjen has been locked away in the deep recesses of the Electric Castle putting together his new Ayreon release, THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.

These days our updates are mainly via  Arjen’s official Facebook page and Youtube channel, so the fact that the album is finished and scheduled for release at the end of October might be genuine news for some of you. With this newsletter, we’ll get you caught up on everything that’s been happening.

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING features a stellar cast of guests, with members past and present of Nightwish, Lacuna Coil, Kamelot, Genesis, Yes, ELP, Asia,  Dream Theater, Toehider, Grand Magus, and Ancient Bards (full artist list below). To sum up:

• It is double album
• It begins a completely new story line for the Ayreon universe
• It comprises four 20-plus minute “epics” divided into 42 separate tracks
• It’s a true Rock Opera with a dramatic, real-world story
• It will be released in 4 editions, including an exclusive limited edition and vinyl (details TBA)
• The DVD for the special and limited editions features two-and-a-half hours of behind-the-scenes content.
• The scheduled release date is 28 October, 2013
• Pre-orders in Arjen’s webshop will start sometime in late September or early October (details to follow, and don’t worry, we won’t forget the newsletter!)

You can hear samples of the music, and see video greetings from many of the vocalists collected here in this Youtube playlist .

VOCALISTS (in order of appearance)

JB (Grand Magus) as The Teacher
Sara Squadrani (Ancient Bards) as The Girl
Michael Mills (Toehider) as The Father
Cristina Scabbia (Lacuna Coil) as The Mother
Tommy Karevik (Kamelot, Seventh Wonder) as The Prodigy
Marco Hietala (Nightwish, Tarot) as The Rival
John Wetton (Asia, King Crimson) as The Psychiatrist

INSTRUMENTALISTS

Ed Warby (Hail of Bullets, Gorefest) – drums
Rick Wakeman (Yes) – keyboards
Keith Emerson (Emerson Lake and Palmer) – keyboards
Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater) – keyboards
Steve Hackett (Genesis) – lead guitar
Troy Donockley (Nightwish) – Whistles, Uilleann pipes
Ben Mathot – violin
Maaike Peterse (Kingfisher Sky) – cello
Jeroen Goossens (Flairck) – flute , bass flute, piccolo, bamboo flute and contrabass flute
Siddharta Barnhoorn – orchestrations
Michael Mills (Toehider) – Irish Bouzouki
Wilmer Waarbroek – backing vocals
Arjen Anthony Lucassen – electric and acoustic guitars, bass guitar, mandolin, analog synthesizers, Hammond, Solina Strings

The artwork for the album cover (above) was painted by Belgian artist Jef Bertels, who has painted all of the Ayreon covers since Into the Electric Castle.

Additional artwork for the album booklet is by Christophe Dessaigne, who also designed the Star One “Victims of the Modern Age” and Guilt Machine “On this Perfect Day.”

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