Award-winning electronic musician, Rich Aucoin, has released his album entitled Release on 17 May and I’m hard-pressed to find an album I’ve been more excited for than this one (and that includes the new Rammstein album).

 

Aucoin has a string of accomplishments in his wake, including a Prism Prize in 2013, (which he’s also been shortlisted for again this year) and nominations for ten East Coast Music Awards including Album, Song and Fan Choice Entertainer of the Year. He is a strong campaigner for social issues and has been involved with Childhood Cancer Canada and The Canadian Mental Health Association/Mental Health America. He has also crossed Canada for the Canadian Heart & Stroke Foundation running a series of half-marathons.

 

 

Speaking of ‘Release’ Aucoin explains: “This is an album about death and about the foundations of our beliefs on the universe and how they help us cope with the knowledge of our mortality. The record is an alternate soundtrack to Alice In Wonderland (1951) and follows Alice as she descends into those beliefs never to leave her wonderland in the same way our beliefs give us the comfort to release our fighting of the inevitable. It was originally to be called Death Release and is largely based around the work of psychologist Ernest Becker’s Denial of Death and his students’ follow-up The Worm At The Core and terror management theory. It was recorded in 16 studios across Canada, US and UK with 51 musicians on it and houses church organs, analogue synths, theremins, string and horn sections and strong guest vocalists.”