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Eureka - "Shackleton's Voyage"
last update: Jan 04, 2010 02:17 PM
Shackleton´s Voyage operates at the interface of prog rock, symphonic, Celtic and – mainly in terms of his guitar style – Mike Oldfield influences. Another sensation is the involvement of Billy Sherwood, a former member of prog rock legend Yes, who contributed the vocals on ‘The Challenge' and ‘Going Home'. “I'd always dreamed of working with Billy Sherwood”, says Frank Bossert . “ Eureka came to his attention a while ago via my MySpace site. Billy sent me a message, telling me how much he liked my music, so contact was established and we decided to work together.”
Along with Sherwood, Shackleton´s Voyage features other illustrious guests: Yogi Lang of the German act, RPWL, mixed and mastered the album and contributed a fantastic Moog solo on ‘Heading South', complementing Bossert's synthesizer passages on ‘Going Home' and ‘Into The Lifeboats', and Troy Donockley (IONA, Nightwish) played bagpipes and flute on ‘Departure'. In terms of content, the songs on the concept album are connected by a narrator, the voice of British actor Ian Dickinson, noted for his part in Wim Wenders' movie ‘Person To Person', among others. The album's cover artwork and booklet featuring original photographs from the expedition (licensed by the London Royal Geographical Society and the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge) are also well worth seeing.
Shackleton´s Voyage is a musical interpretation of Sir Ernest Shackleton's legendary Antarctica expedition, which turned into a survival story. A total of 28 adventurers wanted to be the first to cross Antarctica in 1914, but their ship Endurance sank just one day's sail from its destination. The Endurance was crushed by pack ice while the crew made their dramatic escape in the three remaining lifeboats to a remote rock island . From there, Shackleton and five of his men braved the dangerous Drake Passage in one of the boats to get help from the whalers' base of South Georgia . Following the daring sea journey and having reached the island, Shackleton and two of his men crossed the island's icy mountains, which had been considered impassable, to launch a rescue mission. All 28 seamen survived, Shackleton became a hero, particularly in Britain and Ireland , and is considered, along with Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, the most important Antarctica pioneer.
Shackleton´s Voyage is the fourth album release by the Eureka project, which was founded by Frank Bossert in 1997. Bossert had been singer, guitarist and bassist in a number of Hamburg rock bands before moving to the North Sea town of Husum at the beginning of the 1990s, where he built his own studio. His debut album, Eureka , saw the light of day in autumn 1997, featuring a mix of Celtic motifs, world music, rock and symphonic sounds. 2002 marked the arrival of Eureka 's second CD, The Full Circle ; Bossert formed a band consisting of musician friends and brought the complex sound of his music to the stage for the first time. The project's third album, The Compass Rose , which was greeted by glowing reviews especially in the prog rock press, was recorded in 2004 and 2005. Shackleton´s Voyage sees Frank Bossert embark to more rock-oriented shores again, without neglecting the deeply atmospheric flair of his previous releases.
