Steve Hackett has just released ‘Wherever You Are’ as a single and video, taken from his forthcoming album The Circus And The Nightwhale.
Regarding the track, Hackett commented: “‘Wherever You Are’ is a song of love winning through, shattering the chains of the physical world… Light obliterating darkness. A new universe has opened up with the hope that such a strong love could even survive death. The dreams of childhood realised, there is a sense of everything coming around full circle… Even the three part harmony guitar at the end of Genesis‘ ‘The Musical Box’ is revisited in spirit with the joy of celebration during this song.”
You can check out the video the song here at RAMzine, while his 30th solo album release, The Circus And The Nightwhale, will be released on 16th February. It’s been described as “a rite-of-passage concept album with a young character called Travla at the centre of it.” ‘and it’s said to have an autobiographical angle for the musician who commented: “I love this album. It says the things I’ve been wanting to say for a very long time.”
His first new music in over two years, it will be available via InsideOut Music and feature 13 tracks where listeners are promised “ballads, blues, blistering progressive rock… and healthy measures of theatre and fantasia”.
Hackett will celebrate The Circus And The Nightwhale‘s release with HMV instore events in London on the album’s release date, then in Birmingham on 17th February. There will be a Q & A event followed by an album signing session for fans. Further details can be found by clicking here.
The Circus And The Nightwhale follows two years after Under A Mediterranean Sky, his acoustic album in January 2021, that went to No 2 in the UK Classical chart, followed in September by the metallic Surrender Of Silence, that hit the UK Top 40. Foxtrot At Fifty + Hackett Highlights: Live in Brighton reaching No 2 in the Rock & Metal Chart. This year.
Recorded between tours in 2022 and 2023 at Siren studio in the UK – with guest parts beamed in from Sweden, Austria, the US, Azerbaijan and Denmark, the line-up for The Circus And The Nightwhale includes some familiar faces alongside Hackett on electric and acoustic guitars, 12-string, mandolin, harmonica, percussion, bass and vocals. Roger King (keyboards, programming and orchestral arrangements), Rob Townsend (sax), Jonas Reingold (bass), Nad Sylvan (vocals), Craig Blundell (drums) and Amanda Lehmann on vocals. Nick D’Virgilio and Hugo Degenhardt return as guests on the drum stool, engineer Benedict Fenner appears on keyboards and Malik Mansurov is back with the tar, while the guitarist’s brother, John Hackett, is present once more on flute.
Tracks featured are: ‘People Of The Smoke’, ‘These Passing Clouds’, ‘Taking You Down’, ‘Found And Lost’, ‘Enter The Ring’, ‘Get Me Out!’, ‘Ghost Moon And Living Love’, ‘Circo Inferno’, ‘Breakout’, ‘All At Sea’, ‘Into The Nightwhale’, ‘Wherever You Are’ and ‘White Dove’.
The first single released from the album was ‘People Of The Smoke’ and you can also check out the video of that here at RAMzine.
The new album will be available to pre-order from the 1st December 2023 on several different formats, including a Limited CD + Blu-ray media book (including 5.1 Surround Sound & 24bit high resolution stereo mixes), Standard CD jewel case, gatefold 180g vinyl LP & as digital Album. All feature Denise Marsh’s painting as cover.
Summing up The Circus And The Nightwhale, Hackett said: “It’s a lovely journey that starts dirty, scratchy and smoky and becomes heavenly and divine. How can you resist it?”
Currently on tour in North America, continuing his Foxtrot At Fifty + Hackett Highlights run, next year Hackett will continue to tour the world extensively, including a brand-new UK tour under the name Genesis Greats, Lamb Highlights & Solo, that will see him return to the legendary Royal Albert Hall. For the full list of dates visit here.
