photos by Chuck Deters
This Friday, progressive Warr guitarist JASON BLAKE will unveil his new solo album, Imaginary Cages, through Wayfarer Records. Preceding its official release, Progressive Rock Journal is hosting an exclusive advance stream of the entire record.
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).
Paired with their advance stream of Imaginary Cages, Progressive Rock Journal conducted an interview with BLAKE. When asked about the concept that binds the songs, he replies, “I would say that the overall theme of the album is isolation. I had this idea of our mind as a cage that we sometimes live in. For some people this may be seen as daydreaming or being lost in our thoughts. For others this may be mental obstacles that prohibit us from doing what we would like to do. On the extreme side, these are the people who have appeared to have ‘lost their mind’ and no longer make sense to the rest of society.“
Stream JASON BLAKE’s entire Imaginary Cages album early through Progressive Rock Journal now at THIS LOCATION.
Imaginary Cages will be released by Wayfarer Records this Friday, February 25th. Find preorders for the standard digital, 24 Bit High Res digital, and CD HERE.
Watch the official “Lost Reveries” video as well as performance videos for “Abstractions Of Thought” and “Obscured Clarity” HERE, and watch for additional videos to see release over the weeks ahead.
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.
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