Iamthemorning singer Marjana Semkina has announced she will release her debut solo album Sleepwalking through Kscope Records on February 14. You can watch a special teaser trailer for the album below. The album will be released under an alternative spelling of her name, as Mariana Semkina
"It wasn’t my plan to ascribe any profound meaning or concept to creating Sleepwalking, it’s purpose was more personally therapeutic, it was supposed just to help me get through some dark times, and at the end of that period in my life I found myself, not only renewed but with a collection of songs that were too personal to release under any other name other than my own," Semkina tells Prog.
"I wanted to use Sleepwalking as a way to translate emotions in the most sincere and unrefined way. No sugarcoating, no filters, just creative, honest thought caught in the moment. Turning those dark times and feelings into pure creative energy, something beautiful, something that has purpose."
Sleepwalking features several special guests including Dream Theater keyboard player Jordan Rudess and Nick beggs and Craig Blundell, as well was the St. Petersburg Orchestra "1703" and frequent collaborator Vlad Avy.
The album artwork once again highlights Semkina's love of love for classical art, unifying photography with the 17th-Century Vanitas movement.
“I am a big lover of classical art, and with this cover I wanted to create some sort of a unity between medium of photography and the Vanitas art movement, a genre of still life painting. The paintings of the genre usually contain collections of objects symbolic of the inevitability of death and the transience and vanity of earthly achievements and pleasures; it exhorts the viewer to consider mortality, which is extremely close to where this album came from.”
The full tracklisting is:
1. Dark Matter
2. Am I Sleeping Or Am I Dead
3. Turn Back Time
4. Ars Longa Vita Brevis
5. Invisible
6. Lost At Sea
7. Skin
8. How To Be Alone
9. Everything Burns
10. Mermaid Song
11. Still Life
Sleepwalking can be pre-ordered here.
