Dec. 24, 2015 - Moore shares first CK demo, "Mission," on Patreon
It's not only Christmas time for Kevin Moore fans – it's also Chroma Key time! Moore released the first demo yesterday through his Chroma Key Patreon campaign, which launched two months ago and invited fans to pledge an amount of their choosing to help fund new music. The five-minute demo, titled "Mission," is the first music released by Moore under the Chroma Key name since 2004's Graveyard Mountain Home album.
"The song was built up around a guitar melody by Jim Matheos (heard in the choruses)," Moore said in a post on Patreon. "The lyrics are from the poem 'Mission' by Leonard Cohen (from Book of Longing). I'll have to change them if I decide to include this song on an album!"
The demo is available in MP3, FLAC, and Apple Lossless (M4A) versions, with a bonus track for Chroma Key Enablers and multi-track stems for Chroma Key Collaborators to come. Moore has stated he plans to release about one home-recorded song per month, along with its associated bonus tracks and submixes.
The Chroma Key Patreon campaign launched in October and reached the second and final milestone of $2,000 per song, meaning a new full-length album will be professionally recorded, produced and mixed.
To visit the Chroma Key Patreon page, click here: https://www.patreon.com/chromakey
Dec. 2, 2015 - Dream Theater fan creates video of audio samples used on I&W
A Dream Theater fan has created a video giving us a look at the sources behind the audio samples used on the band's 1992 breakthrough album, Images and Words. The video, which was published to YouTube on Nov. 30, includes audio samples ranging from rapper Kurtis Blow to actor Robert DeNiro. Blow's sample was taken from his 1979 song, "Christmas Rappin'," and appears in the opening moments of Images and Word's third track, "Take the Time." DeNiro's sample was taken from the 1978 film, "The Deer Hunter," and appears on "Don't Look Past Me," a song written during Dream Theater's I&W sessions that later appeared on the band's 1999 fan club album, Cleaning Out the Closet.
Other samples include short segments from Frank Zappa's 1979 song, "Dancin' Fool," and Public Enemy's 1990 song, "Power to the People." In addition, the 1988 movie "Cinema Paradiso" and 1980 movie "Ordinary People" also have samples that appear in the minute-and-a-half video.
The video was created by Marc Papeghin of France, who is also known as PintoZ on the Dream Theater Forums and mpapeghin on The Mooreatorium Forums. Papeghin has previously made videos featuring film footage of the audio samples used in Dream Theater's 1994 album Awake, 1995 EP A Change of Seasons, and 2003 song "Honor Thy Father."
To view the Papeghin's video, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZaVL9Lwn0Y
Nov. 20, 2015 - New Chroma Key album to come as pledges hit $2,000 per song
Good news, Chroma Key fans: A new full-length album is officially coming! The Chroma Key Patreon campaign launched last month by Kevin Moore has reached the second and final milestone of $2,000 per song, meaning that a new full-length album will be professionally recorded, produced and mixed. It will be the first music released by Moore under the Chroma Key name since 2004's Graveyard Mountain Home.
To reach the full-length album milestone, a total of 254 patrons donated money over the past three-and-a-half weeks. The first milestone of $1,000 per song was reached early on in the pledging process, meaning that Moore would be releasing a selection of new songs as a Chroma Key EP.
But the fans didn't stop there. They wanted a full-length album. And, by golly, they made it happen. Now, we wait. But first, congratulations to all the Chroma Key fans worldwide for making this album happen!
For more information on the Chroma Key Patreon project or to make a pledge, click here: https://www.patreon.com/chromakey
Oct. 26, 2015 - Moore launches Patreon campaign to fund new Chroma Key music
The news that many Kevin Moore fans have been awaiting for over a decade has come: Chroma Key is back! Moore launched a Patreon campaign today inviting fans to pledge a dollar amount of their choosing to help fund new Chroma Key music. It would be the first music released by Moore under the Chroma Key name since 2004's Graveyard Mountain Home album.
"A while back, I crowdfunded the production of a CD with a Kickstarter campaign," Moore wrote on Chroma Key's new Patreon page. "Patreon campaigns work a little differently. You can support a musician's ongoing creative output by pledging a few dollars for each song they produce."
Moore said he plans to release about one home-recorded song per month, along with its associated bonus tracks and submixes. If pledging reaches $1,000 per song, he'll release a selection of new songs as a Chroma Key EP. If pledging reaches $2,000 per song, each song would be professionally recorded, produced and mixed – suitable for a full-length Chroma Key album.
For more information on the Chroma Key Patreon project or to make a pledge, click here: https://www.patreon.com/chromakey
July 27, 2015 - Deluxe reissue of Fates Warning's A Pleasant Shade of Gray
Fates Warning will be releasing a three CD/DVD deluxe reissue of their critically acclaimed 1997 album, A Pleasant Shade of Gray, on Oct. 2. The album, which features Kevin Moore on keyboards, features a single song divided into 12 tracks and will be reissued by Metal Blade Records, which made the announcement earlier today on its website.
"The album is notable for its darker mood and mixture of progressive rock and metal with hints of industrial, classical, and psychedelia," Metal Blade said.
The reissue will feature the original album on the first CD, with the second CD containing a live version of the album recorded during the band’s 1998 European tour as well as a soundcheck recording of "We Only Say Goodbye" and a studio cover version of The Scorpions' "In Trance." The third CD in the package consists of demos from the pre-production and writing sessions.
Finally, the DVD portion of the set consists of two complete live performances of "A Pleasant Shade of Gray." The first is a restored and re-edited version of the band’s 1998 VHS release and the second was filmed at The Whisky in Hollywood, California, in 1999. Pre-orders as well as the first samples of music from this special edition will be available next Thursday, Aug. 6.
July 13, 2015 - I&W top prog album of past 25 years; "Metropolis" on Rock Band 4
Dream Theater's Images and Words album might have turned 23 years old last week, but it was honored with two special designations today. The acclaimed album, which features Kevin Moore on keyboards, has been named the Top Prog Album of 1990-2015 by The Prog Report, a website dedicated to progressive music news, reviews and interviews. In addition, the album's fifth song, "Metropolis Pt. 1: The Miracle and the Sleeper," has been announced as one of 11 new songs to be appearing on Rock Band 4, which is slated for release on Oct. 6.
"With the end of hair metal and the rise of Nirvana and grunge, this progressive metal band from Berklee found themselves with a gold record and a hit single with their 1992 sophomore album, Images and Words," The Prog Report said. "For prog and metal fans left out in the cold with mainstream music, this album was critical. This was also the first album to feature vocalist James LaBrie. Dream Theater were the first band to master and find success in the new era of progressive music, combining the technicality of Yes with the heaviness of Metallica for a completely new sound. Now celebrating 30 years, this was the album that started it all and much of the reason many of us are still into progressive rock and metal."
Other Dream Theater albums to make the list are 1999's Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes From a Memory at #3, 2002's Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence at #14, 1994's Awake at #18, and 2002's Train of Thought at #38. In addition to performing on Images and Words and Awake, Moore also performed on the #29 album, which was Fates Warning's 1997 album A Pleasant Shade of Gray.
To view The Prog Report's list of the Top 50 Prog Albums of 1990-2015, click here: http://progreport.com/top-50-prog-albums-1990-2015/
To view the full list of Rock Band 4's just-announced tracks, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9IBvmwxSDU
March 5, 2015 - Artist for DT's Images & Words shares insight into cover's creation
Dream Theater was "very hands on" in creating the cover artwork for the band's 1992 breakthrough album Images and Words, according to an article posted online today by PROG magazine. Larry Freemantle, the artist for the iconic album, said he was assigned the project through Elektra Records and he tried to make the cover compositionally look like an "old painting" from a design point of view.
"I remember I met with the band and we sat down and went through everything," Freemantle said in the article, which was written by Rich Wilson. "They were very hands on in the early days. John Myung was probably the key person I met along with John Petrucci. Kevin Moore and Mike Portnoy were also very much involved too. They were very specific about what should be where on the sleeve. It was just a matter of trying to piece it together. So they wanted a little girl, they wanted the bird flying and that style of room. It was a collage of engravings and illustrations which I thought was pretty cool. The engravings and the room were from old engravings book that we spliced together, and the sky was worked into it too. As for the font, I had that created and hired a calligrapher, John Stevens, as I wanted it to be personalised and to look like a type font.”
Freemantle also went on to discuss how it was to work with the band, calling them very "down to earth."
“They were easy going and it’s always easier to work with a new band than someone who has been around for a long time," he said. "In the beginning they were so happy just to be doing some of the stuff we were doing, and it wasn’t a big budget job. They were a very serious and professional band right from the start. A lot of bands are like the deer in the headlights when it comes to ideas so their attitude was quite unusual. They were always great when they came to the table as they always had ideas.”
To read the full piece, click here: http://prog.teamrock.com/features/2015-03-05/cover-story-dream-theater-images-and-words
Feb. 6, 2015 - Eren Başbuğ posts cover version of song from Moore's Shine album
appeared on Dream Theater's two latest releases. Eren Başbuğ, a recent graduate of Berklee College of Music who contributed his conducting and arrangement skills to Dream Theater's self-titled release in 2013 and Breaking the Fourth Wall live album and video in 2014, posted a video on YouTube earlier this week of himself covering "Sh," a track from Moore's 2010 album Shine.
The performance took place at Bronx Pi Sahne, a nightclub in Beyoglu, Turkey, and served as an intro song during a tour of Turkey by Ivory, an independent band in Izir, Turkey. The band's members are Başbuğ (Dream Theater, Jordan Rudess), Alus Doğucan Güneş (Dreamforge, Epikriz), Ali Özen (Kanca, Disenchant), Doğuş Ünver (Epikriz) and Cihan Köseoğlu (Ocean Cloud).
Moore's Shine is the soundtrack to the 2006 Turkish film, "Küçük Kiyamet (The Little Apocalypse)," which tells the horrific tale of a Turkish family torn apart by an earthquake. In 2010, Moore announced a funding project to manufacture and release the soundtrack and fans exceeded the $3,000 benchmark in less than 24 hours, surpassing $10,000 overall.
To view the cover version of "Sh," click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKsnmpFW6yE&feature=youtu.be&list=UULFlyviZXb5Pw5L89zpVosQ
For more information on the band Ivory, click here: http://www.ivoryband.net/
