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

Richard Barbieri
first rose to prominence as a member of Japan, who formed in 1976. Over the course of five albums, Japan developed into one of the most vibrant and innovative of bands of the early 1980s, with their groundbreaking Tin Drum album staying in the UK charts for over a year. Barbieri’s painstaking approach to synthesiser programming, working in close cohort with David Sylvian, and set to the subtly-shifting rhythmic patterns of Steve Jansen and Mick Karn conspired to produce an utterly unique sound. Despite achieving huge international commercial success, the band never lost sight of desire to keep pushing and exploring their sonic template. The band split in 1983 after a successful world tour, whilst at the peak of their popularity.

In 1983/4/5 Richard contributed to solo albums by David Sylvian and Mick Karn. Soon after, he started a long musical association with Steve Jansen, which produced six collaborative albums.

The band members reunited in 1989 under the name Rain Tree Crow to release just one album for Virgin – roundly considered their finest work, the album charted and brought critical acclaim, but again the group parted company shortly afterwards.

Barbieri formed the Medium label in 1993 with Karn and Jansen, with the objective being to enable the artists to create music and collaborate with fellow musicians on projects without record company interference and restriction. Thirteen diverse albums were released during a ten-year period; Jansen and Barbieri’s collaboration with DJ Takemura on the album Changing Hands being one of the highlights. Also during this period Barbieri recorded the album Flame with Tim Bowness which was released on One Little Indian Records. In 1993 Barbieri’s career took another dazzling turn when joined the rock band Porcupine Tree. 10 albums and many tours later, they were enjoying chart success around Europe and America with sales of over 200,000 for their album Fear of a Blank Planet which was nominated for a Grammy Award in the 5.1 Surround Sound category.

2009 saw the release of The Incident album which charted all over Europe and peaked at number 23 in the UK charts and 25 in the US Billboard charts. Again the album was nominated for a Grammy in the surround category. The band finished their Incident tour with sell out shows at Radio City Music Hall, NY and The Royal Albert Hall, London in 2010.

Aside from recording and touring, Richard has written articles on analogue synthesis for various publications and sound designs for music software and synthesiser manufacturers. He has guested with The Bays, an electronic improvisational group.

Highlights for the band included two Radio One sessions for the late John Peel and concerts at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Brighton Dome and Sydney Harbour.

His first solo album Things Buried was re released on Snapper Music. A second solo album Stranger Inside followed in 2008. In February 2012 a long intended project was finally realised when Not the Weapon but the Hand was released; a collaboration with vocalist / lyricist Steve Hogarth.

His latest solo album Planets + Persona is his most sonically expansive work to date and will be released on Kscope. Barbieri’s skill at harnessing the skills of a contrasting set of musicians is at a new peak, in a thoughtful and considered set rich in tone and texture.

This album contains no booklet.