Nightwish singer Floor Jansen has been confirmed as a guest vocalist on the upcoming Ayreon album.
Ayreon mastermind Arjen Lucassen has also announced Blind Guardian vocalist Hansi Kursch as a guest singer on the as-yet-untitled sci-fi follow-up to 2013 record The Theory Of Everything.
Jansen – who has worked with Ayreon in the past – and Kursch join the previously announced Dream Theater frontman James LaBrie and Between The Buried And Me singer Tommy Rogers on the record. The Nightwish singer’s voice appears on a track called The Biologist, while Kursch appears on The Astronomer.
The album will be released next year via Mascot Label Group. Lucassen has released teaser clips of some of the guest singers and asked fans to try identify them.
Jansen – who announced recently that she is pregnant – says: “I will be one of the voices on the amazing upcoming new Ayreon album. Yesterday snippets of songs went on Facebook for people to guess who’s voice it was they heard. I read some of those guesses, really cool.
“As a child I wanted to become a biologist. I loved, and love, nature and all creatures in it and I understood on a child’s level that a biologist works with this.
“My biggest passion won from this child’s dream. But now it’s uniquely combined in the story behind Ayreon’s new album.”
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She continues: “Working with Arjen was again so relaxed and so much fun. Again he pulled the best out of me with his amazing music and ways of recording.
“Making music with such a musician is a true privilege. Standing in the studio with a growing belly was another new challenge which turned out to be easy. The baby loves music and rocks around as I belt out some notes.”
Lucassen says of Kursch: “Not only an extremely powerful singer, but also one of the nicest guys I’ve worked with.”
And on Jansen, he adds: “Once again she managed to impress me. This was undoubtedly the best recording session I ever did with her.”
Lucassen will reveal more guest singers in the coming weeks and months, along with two guest musicians.
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