photos by Chuck Deters
As progressive guitarist JASON BLAKE prepares for his new solo album, Imaginary Cages, to see release late this month through Wayfarer Records, Sonic Perspectives presents the new video for “Obscured Clarity.”
The Warr Guitar is a twelve-string instrument incorporating the range of a guitar and bass. It is played by tapping the strings; a technique known as touchstyle guitar. When his primary band, Chicago-based instrumental/progressive metal trio Aziola Cry, returned from a fourteen-year hiatus with the Sensory Records release of their blazing The Ironic Divide last year, JASON BLAKE’s performance on the record was noticed and praised by critics and fans abroad. Within the group, he writes music featuring the rhythmic and melodic capabilities of the Warr Guitar in a band setting.
However, with his solo work, JASON BLAKE pushes the boundaries of the instrument while incorporating elements of progressive rock, ambient, and classical. Signed to Olympia, Washington-based Wayfarer Records, he released his first album for the label in June of 2021. Called, “an aural feast of different sounds,” by Sea of Tranquility, the album Fictional Mirrors was the first album of a planned progressive ambient trilogy titled The Ternary Instinct. While the other installments of that series are being formulated, BLAKE now returns with Imaginary Cages.
A six-song progressive rock suite of solo Warr guitar, Imaginary Cages features some of BLAKE‘s most complicated work to date, boasting technical prowess in a bold but subdued setting. With delicate and tranquil chorus-drenched ambience, JASON BLAKE executes forty minutes of precision musicianship with no overdubs. The album was mixed by Tyler Rice at Transient Sound, mastered by Bob Katz at Digital Domain (Foghat, Sinead O’Connor, Necrophagist), and completed with artwork by Hajo Müller (Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson).
“Obscured Clarity” is the second song on Imaginary Cages and sees release as the album’s second single through an engaging video of JASON BLAKE performing the track live in the actual recording session setting. BLAKE delves, “‘Obscured Clarity’ continues the Imaginary Cages story and deals with the fogginess that can inhibit our minds. I used two contradictory words in the title to represent the push/pull that can occurs internally. Musically, I wanted the song to move through many different sections and give the illusion of a tormented inner dialogue. From a playing standpoint. I threw a variety of different styles into this song. As a result, it is one of my favorites to perform.”
Watch JASON BLAKE deftly deliver “Obscured Clarity” first through Sonic Perspectives first now at THIS LOCATION.
Imaginary Cages will be released by Wayfarer Records on February 25th. Preorders for the standard digital, 24 Bit High Res digital, and CD are now live HERE.
BLAKE filmed the recording of every song on the album and is releasing them in succession surrounding its release. Watch for additional installments, an official video, and more from the album to post over the days ahead.
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