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Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Steve Rothery reveals details of new Bioscope album with Tangerine Dream's Thorsten Quaeschning
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Marillion guitarist Steve Rothery has revealed details of his new project Bioscope, a collaboration with Tangerine Dream's Thorsten Quaeschning. The pair will release their first album, Gentō', through earMusic in late July or early August, although the CD version is now available to pre-order from Marillion's Racket label for shipping in early May, the first 500 of which will be signed by the guitarist. "I've just returned from Abbey Road where the half-speed vinyl was being cut for my Bioscope project with Thorsten Quaeschning from Tangerine Dream," Rothery told Marillion fans in the band's regular newsletter. "The project started life in early 2020 and after several five-day trips to Berlin over the years, and a few days in my home studio, it was finally ready to be mixed and mastered! It has taken a little longer than anticipated but it's really sounding fantastic!" The album also features Elbow drummer Alex Reeves whose performance across the album is labelled by Rothery as "fantastic" You can see the new album art and tracklisting below. Rothery has been busy with Marillion in a live front, as the band have been performing their celebrated Weekend live events in the Netherlands, Canada and France, with Italy, the UK, Germany and Norway to folllow. Marillion are also working on a new studio album, although that is unlikely to see the light of day until 2026 at the earliest. Pre-order Bioscope CD. Bioscope: Gentō1. Vanishing Point2. Gentō3. Kinetoscope4. Bioscope5. Kaleidoscope
The Guardian
14-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Less Star Wars – more Blade Runner': the making of Mass Effect 2's Bafta-nominated soundtrack
Mass Effect is some of the best science fiction ever made. That may sound like a grandiose comment, but it's true. As a trilogy, the original games from 2007-2013 effortlessly plucked the most cerebral ideas from the sci-fi genre and slotted them into a memorable military role-playing game that had players invested from beginning to controversial end. Whether you prefer the hopeful, optimistic outlook of Asimov, the dark and reflective commentary of Shelley, the accessible thought experiments of Star Trek, or the arch melodrama of Battlestar Galactica, Mass Effect has it all. The trilogy is as happy grazing on the western-inspired tropes of Star Wars as the 'hard' sci-fi of Iain M Banks, blending all its moods and micro-stories into a compelling, believable galaxy that somehow walks a line between breathless optimism and suffocating bleakness. Mass Effect is special. And like any successful video game series, the achievement of the franchise rests on the shoulders of a huge assembly of developers. BioWare project director Casey Hudson and the studio's co-founders, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk, get a lot of the credit, but so much of its soul comes from BioWare's other creatives, too. The writing of Drew Karpyshyn, the art direction of Derek Watts, the vision of lead designer Preston Watamaniuk … and the soaring, cinematic music of Jack Wall. 'I had made a soundtrack for Jade Empire very successfully with BioWare before Mass Effect,' Wall tells me, when I ask how he became part of the team working on the original title. 'Then, they put out an audition process for what the team was calling SFX, the codename for Mass Effect. It was a blind audition, and BioWare got the files back from a number of composers. The team would listen to all those different things and decide who nailed it the most for the tone or the feeling they were picturing. And I won that audition blind.' Almost immediately, Casey Hudson got to work on giving Wall the brief. 'His mandate was 'I want this to sound like 80s sci-fi music'. No Star Wars, nothing like that, more like Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, Blade Runner. Those were the main ideas.' Hudson specifically wanted to channel that vintage analogue synth sound that defined the science fiction of the era (especially in movies) and imagined the multilayered, multitextured approach from Tangerine Dream as the perfect accompaniment to the dense and complex Mass Effect universe. Wall explains that BioWare played him a piece of music written by another composer called Sam Hulick, who had also auditioned for the project. While Hulick wasn't chosen to be the lead composer (because he was considered to be too junior for the job), Wall gave him equal credit on the soundtrack, thanks to his 'incredibly important' contributions to key themes in the first game. It wasn't until Mass Effect 2 that the music really came into its own, becoming integral to the whole experience. Where Mass Effect has this almost utopian outlook, channelling the optimism of mid-20th century sci-fi to establish its universe, the sequel is darker. The end of everything is nigh. From the off, you're told the final act is a 'Suicide Mission', and to get your affairs in order before you reach the point of no return. There's a pervasive pessimism, and every second you play you can feel the suffocating inevitability of sacrifice closing in around you. It needed music to match. 'Right at the beginning of the development, Casey Hudson came in and said 'I'd love to write the ending now',' Wall says, ''because everything's going to culminate there. I want that to be the main moment that everyone remembers. He gave me some guidance, and talked me through what he wanted [players] to feel – which is always the best way to work with a director.' Sign up to Pushing Buttons Keza MacDonald's weekly look at the world of gaming after newsletter promotion This track, aptly named Suicide Mission, may be the most important across the whole trilogy. It has a more orchestral bias than anything from the first game, and reflects the serious overall tone. It shows how rapidly Mass Effect matured from one game to the next. 'It had to be epic, it had to feel cinematic, it had to feel 'one man against everything',' says Wall. 'You needed to feel like you were saving the world, saving the galaxy, whatever. I came up with that main theme, and [Hudson] liked it pretty much immediately.' But before Wall and Hudson could start fitting the pieces together, there was some maintenance to be done. BioWare and Wall were unimpressed by how the music in the first game had been patched into the final product. 'The transitions were terrible,' Wall says when I ask for examples, 'and it just didn't do justice to the music. 'So, what we decided is that in Mass Effect 2, I would do all the implementation, which was something I'd never done before,' he continues. 'I had an amazing assistant called Brian DiDomenico who worked with me in my studio every day; he sat in my vocal booth with a desk and a PC, and I would send him my tracks, he would implement them into the game, and I would do a play test there and then. And we would tweak it until it was really good … BioWare was known for only putting out a game when it was ready, and so things got delayed a lot, but fans were super happy when they got it.' Wall remembers finishing the game, noting that the whole ending sequence came through 'in little tiny pieces of video that were spewed out by the game engine'. He took the files and fed them into a movie editor on his Mac, pieced the ending together, and edited Suicide Mission into it. He then wrote different endings to the track, reflecting the choices of the player. 'It was the biggest mind-fucking thing I've ever done in my entire life,' he laughs. 'And there was no one available to walk me through it, because they were all freaking out trying to finish the game. I handed it in, and they had to do a lot of massaging on their end in order to get it to work, but they did it … and the result is still one of the best ending sequences to a game that I've ever played. It was worth all that effort.' Wall did not return to score Mass Effect 3, the least well-received game in the trilogy. 'Casey was not particularly happy with me at the end,' he says. 'But I'm so proud of that score. It got nominated for a Bafta, and it did really well … [even if] it didn't go as well as Casey wanted.' Talking to Wall, I sensing an almost Fleetwood Mac level of creative tension between him and Hudson; the duo made something amazing that would live in the hearts of sci-fi and RPG lovers for ever, but at the cost of some relationships. 'Fallouts like that happen, it's just part of the deal,' he says. 'It's one of the few times in my career that's happened, and it was a tough time, but it is what it is.' Mass Effect 2's final mission can be survived. If you make all the right choices, and execute the plan with absolute lucidity and determination, you can save your main character and all of the crew as they stare certain death in the eye. But the much more likely result, at least for most players, is that you lose at least one member of the team. This ragtag bunch of heroes becomes splintered, and limps into the climax of the series wounded, demoralised and desperate. To me, it's a reflection of the brutal reality that good sci-fi reveals – a dramatic, honest look at the best and worst of human nature. Mass Effect Legendary Edition, which includes Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2, is available now on Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.
Yahoo
31-01-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Paris Couture Week Dinner Celebrates Qatari Designer Yasmin Mansour
PARIS — Qatar is ready to bring its fashion designers to the world stage. Paris-based designers including Giambattista Valli, Gaia Repossi and Burç Akyol turned out for a dinner on the closing day of Paris Couture Week in honor of Yasmin Mansour, one of the country's rising talents. More from WWD Swedish Brand Bite Studios to Open at Harrods Here's How to Shop Ariana Grande's First Collection With Swarovski That's Full of Old Hollywood-inspired Jewelry Megan Thee Stallion's Tangerine Dream at Giambattista Valli The event was hosted by M7, the innovation and entrepreneurship hub for design, fashion and tech established by Qatar Museums under the leadership of Her Excellency Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani, the sister of Qatar's ruler. The winner of the most recent edition of the Fashion Trust Arabia Prize in the eveningwear category, Mansour presented a selection of her designs, showcasing her signature fabric layering technique, in a vast apartment on Rue de Rivoli. But the clothes were best appreciated on stylish guests like Farida Khelfa, who wore an ivory tailored coat with mille-feuille sleeves, and Natalia Vodianova, in a short bustier dress with a layered skirt, accessorized with one of Mansour's croissant-shaped handbags — which also inspired the menu by culinary collective We Are Ona. 'I think she's very talented, and I've been attending Fashion Trust Arabia, where Yasmin, like other nominees and winners, get highlighted. I'm just very curious to support other regions, other talents, other points of view,' Vodianova said. The model, philanthropist and entrepreneur noted that the Middle East was becoming a huge market for luxury goods. 'Therefore, also, there is a lot of exposure to beauty, but within a very unique cultural setting which creates something new and fresh and exciting for the rest of the world,' she said. So what could she fit in such a tiny purse? 'My bag is very small, but it's quite magic,' she said, pulling out a credit card, pouch, lipgloss and Samsung Galaxy flip phone to demonstrate. Mansour said she soft-launched the bags two years ago, starting with family and friends and gradually expanding preorders to the rest of the Gulf region. She plans to relaunch her website next month to make them widely available for sale for the first time. Customers will also be able to preorder her fall collection, set to go on sale at Harrods department store in London in June, she said. Mansour's designs are strongly inspired by architecture, with her latest collection taking its cues from the National Museum of Qatar designed by Jean Nouvel, who based its petal-shaped structure on a desert rose mineral formation. Aldana Al Mesnad, head of business development at M7, said the nonprofit works in partnership with Scale7, a fashion and design business incubator founded by Qatar Development Bank, to help promote, develop and foster the creative industry in the country. 'What we focus more on is really pushing the designers to think more creatively and on a bigger scale,' she explained. 'We're really trying to get them to think of the global market and how they can enter it, and we give them the tools.' The country has ambitions to create a local school for craftsmanship, but it is building its local fashion industry one step at a time to ensure the structures are sustainable, the executive said. 'Nowhere in the world will you find that you have a small pool of talent that can have access to world class resources,' Al Mesnad remarked. 'I see this as one of our good traits, because now we can really build on a small scale, think long term, not really try to do a huge splash or, 'I want 100 or 200 designers to make it.' I'm looking at three, then four, then five,' she added. Mansour got emotional when discussing the journey of her brand, established in 2014. 'I feel like I'm part of inspiring the new generations. And I always have tears in my eyes when I talk about this, because we don't have it now, and I feel like it's my responsibility to just show people what Qatar can do, also in fashion,' she said. Launch Gallery: Natalia Vodianova, Giambattista Valli and More Celebrate Yasmin Mansour in Paris Best of WWD From the Archive: A Look Back at Marc Jacobs Annual Holiday Party [PHOTOS] A Look Back at the Premiere Debutante Ball for the Young Scions of Powerful and Rich: Fashion Trends, Notable Attendees and More A Look Back at LACMA Art + Film Gala Best Dressed Red Carpet Stars
