BLABBERMOUTH.NET
AURI, the project featuring
NIGHTWISH mainman/keyboardist
Tuomas Holopainen and his wife, popular Finnish singer
Johanna Kurkela, will release its second album,
"II - Those We Don't Speak Of", on September 3 via
Nuclear Blast. The effort will be the follow-up to
AURI's self-titled debut LP, which came out in March 2018 via
Nuclear Blast.
The
"II - Those We Don't Speak Of" cover artwork comes once again from
Janne "ToxicAngel" Pitkänen and bestows in its simplicity and depth.
The first single and pre-order start will be revealed very soon.
AURI began its life with three people, united through their shared need to hear a kind of a music which can't be described by words alone. The first song born of this mindset,
"Aphrodite Rising", appeared in 2011.
Kurkela lent her unique voice, while
Holopainen and English composer and multi-instrumentalist
Troy Donockley (also of
NIGHTWISH) cast their spells with various other instruments. Now complemented by the dynamic percussive talents of
Kai Hahto (
NIGHTWISH), the threesome carves fantastical worlds entirely their own.
In a 2018 interview with
Dead Rhetoric,
Donockley stated about
AURI's formation: "It was always there for us, since 2010. We decided back then that the three of us wanted to do something together.
Tuomas and I are huge fans of
Johanna's voice. I had been involved in one of her albums as a guest musician, and
Tuomas had written a song for her on a solo album. So the three of us realized pretty early on that we wanted to do something together, musically. It was obvious that it couldn't be like
NIGHTWISH. But it was something we felt really strongly about, that we had to release this atmosphere we all felt, and were tuned into. I know that sounds fairly vague, but that's truly what it was. It was a kind of music that we wanted to get out of ourselves. We are close friends and have very similar tastes and attitudes towards life so we made our plans, but
NIGHTWISH is a behemoth. We have our commitments there and we did
'Imaginaerum' and
'Endless Forms Most Beautiful' after our decision to work together on some music. As it turned out, fortune smiled on us with a sabbatical year. We decided to dive in and work on it."
Asked how he would compare the spirit/essence of
AURI with that of
NIGHTWISH,
Donockley said: "We don't see it as very different from
NIGHTWISH at all. Sonically it is, for sure. We were struggling to find a label for it, as it usually happens, so I just tossed out 'celestial metal.' So this Polish journalist said to me, 'I know what you mean about celestial metal. It's kind of heavenly music. It has the metal attitude, but without all of the electric guitars and bass.' Metal is an attitude. The metal scene — the metal fans are open-minded, as I said before. The Italian [
NIGHTWISH] fan club, I did an interview with them, and this was brought up and she told me that she was a fan of
DIMMU BORGIR as well as
Ed Sheeran. That's it right there! So I think the
NIGHTWISH connection is inevitable because of
Tuomas and I are in it, so there are those elements. But I think the spirit is the same as
NIGHTWISH. It does cover a lot of the same themes, it's just not obviously
NIGHTWISH. It's down to the sonic side, honestly."
AURI is:
Johanna Kurkela: Voices, viola
Tuomas Holopainen: Keys, backing voices
Troy Donockley: Acoustic and electric guitars, bouzouki, uilleann pipes, low whistles, aerophone, bodhran, keys, voices
Holopainen and
Kurkela have been married since October 2015.