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After finishing the successful Collection record Richard
already had in mind the third Time Requiem record. He
was extremely satisfied by the work the musicians did
on the Collection record and he decided to go for that
very line up. Working with Mr. Göran Edman took
his music into another dimension.
1st of September 2005 Richard started to compose the
songs for "Optical Illusion" and it took two
months to complete the eight songs. This time Richard
had Görans voice in mind and decided to make the
music a step away from the neoclassical stuff even though
you can hear the special Andersson classical melodies.
The music is best described as neoclassical progressive
film musical metal. Richard has always been very interested
in film music and the way they build up the special
movements just like the classical masters.
Since Richard was very stimulated with the recordings
for the Collection record he decided to do everything
by himself, control freak as he is! Everything is recorded,
mixed and even mastered in his legendary Lipton studio.
Having this total control from beginning to end is the
fact that the result I so stunning.
Richard has always been very fond of Swedish drummer
and old friend Mr. Jörg Andrews. The Collection
record was his first really recording. Richard has asked
him so many times that he decided to go for it now.
It took a while and bit of editing to get the drums
in place. Mr. Andrews is not a professional musician
and nowadays he is serving the military in Yugoslavia
for the Swedish government.
Andy Rose has also been very anonymous for the metal
scene only playing in local bands before ending up with
Mr. Andersson. Andy Rose has before played on some of
Richards's demos and pre productions but never on a
real production. Since he lives near by Andersson they
could put effort making each song extremely tight and
take a lot of time.
The Japanese bonus track is a special edition for the
Japanese people. Mr Anders Johansson (Hammerfall, ex.
Malmsteen) did the drums for the song "Despair
and Pain" on second Space Odyssey record "The
Astral Episode" one year ago. The drums did not
end up on the real record but was in Richards's computer
the whole time. Richard has always loved that song and
got the idea using the old drum tracks putting them
into the song adding Mr Göran Edmans new fresh
vocals on to it. The result is a rough live mix of a
killer song that definitely will satisfy the Japanese
die hard fans! Very rare!
The artwork idea is developed by Mr. Andersson in collaboration
with famous art director Mattias Norén at Progart
Media in Sweden. Mattias has done cd artwork for artists
such as Ayreon, Hammerfall, Inflames, Dream Theater
etc. etc.
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