In the Raw Tarja

• 1 Dead Promises 05:50
• 2 Goodbye Stranger 05:12
• 3 Tears in Rain 04:28
• 4 Railroads 04:01
• 5 You and I 04:08
• 6 The Golden Chamber: Awaken / Loputon Yö / The Alchemy 07:05
• 7 Spirits of the Sea 06:56
• 8 Silent Masquerade 07:32
• 9 Serene 04:42
• 10 Shadow Play 07:23
• Total Runtime 57:17

Info for In the Raw

As the saying goes, not all that glitters is gold. But then again, not all that is gold necessarily glitters. It was this idea that struck Finnish singer Tarja Turunen as she began work on her seventh solo album, “In The Raw”.

“Gold, we think, is something polished and perfect, sophisticated, a luxury – but in its natural state it’s a raw element”, explains Tarja. Just like the music on her upcoming album: a combination of sophisticated and refined orchestration, choir and her classically trained voice with a raw, dark heavy musical core. Simply put, “In The Raw” is a gold-plated work of wonder.

Three years on from her last album, 2016’s “The Shadow Self”, “In The Raw” finds Tarja and her beautiful voice sounding, as ever, truly stunning. Working with many of the same musicians and production team as before, the intention was to bring out the idea of rawness to match the feelings Tarja was having from the very beginning of the process.

The album finds Tarja going to raw, personal places in her lyrics. Opening herself up more than ever before, she says she was left feeling naked by her honesty, but also pleased at where she had gone with her words.

The first look at the album, the brand-new song “Dead Promises”, is all this and more. Matching the stunning power of Tarja’s voice with a thunderous guitar, the aggression she speaks of is brought to the front, not threatening to shatter something fragile, but reinforcing its power. “I really like how the guitar sounds: in your face,” she says. “If I’m singing powerfully, I need something powerful behind me so that I don’t feel like I am left alone.” Fans will find that the album includes an amazing duet version of the song with guest vocals by Björn “Speed” Strid of Soilwork.

Tarja

Tarja Turunen
Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen Cabuli (Finnish pronunciation: [ˈtɑrjɑ ˈturunen]) (born 1977 August 17, Finland) is a lyric soprano and songwriter, best known as original member and the former female vocalist of Finnish symphonic power metal quintet Nightwish. She was dismissed from the band on October 22, 2005 after nine years. Turunen is now devoting her time to her solo career under the stage name of Tarja. She is married to Argentine businessman Marcelo Cabuli. Tarja has also appeared in various Finnish television programs, and was a guest judge on Idols on March 27, 2007. She is seen as one of Finland’s biggest singers, having been called “the voice of Finland” by Tarja Halonen, the Finnish president.

Tarja with Nightwish: Born in Kitee, Finland, Turunen began to study music at the age of six, and moved to the city of Kuopio at the age of eighteen to study at the Sibelius Academy. She became a founding member of Nightwish in 1996 when her classmate Tuomas Holopainen invited her to join his new musical project. That year Turunen also performed with the Savonlinna Opera Festival. However, she did not become internationally famous until the release of Nightwish’s successful follow-up album, Oceanborn, in 1998.

Turunen sang solo in Waltari’s rock-themed 1999 ballet Evankeliumi (also known as Evangelicum) in several sold-out performances at the Finnish National Opera. She continued to tour and record with Nightwish through 2000 and 2001, after which she enrolled in Karlsruhe, Germany’s Music University. While there, she recorded vocals for Nightwish’s 2002 album Century Child and for Beto Vázquez Infinity.

In 2002, Turunen toured South America, performing in the classical Lied concert Noche Escandinava (Scandinavian Night), again to sold-out houses. Following this and an exhausting world tour in support of Century Child, Nightwish took a hiatus and Turunen returned to Karlsruhe.

Finnish president Tarja Halonen and her husband invited Turunen to the President’s Palace in Helsinki in December 2003 for the Finnish Independence Day Party, Finland’s biggest social event, where the viewers of Finnish television station Yle named her the most impressively dressed lady, among honors given by several newspapers and magazines.

After the hiatus, Turunen rejoined Nightwish for the album Once and supporting world tour throughout 2004-2005, and embarked on a second Noche Escandinava tour in the spring of 2004. For Christmas 2004, she released the single “Yhden Enkelin Unelma” (One Angel’s Dream), which sold gold in her native country, Finland. For the spring of 2005, she prepared a collaboration with Germany’s Martin Kesici, the duet “Leaving You for Me”, also accompanied by a video. On October 21, 2005, Turunen was asked to leave Nightwish in an open letter by the other members of Nightwish, citing her “changed attitude” and increased financial interest. She responded through another open letter, which was posted on her website in both Finnish and English (the letter can no longer be found on her website, but is available on a fan page). In February 2006, Tarja’s husband Marcelo posted a message to her website addressing the situation, and asked for anyone who had questions pertaining to the issues between Tarja and the rest of the band to email him. Marcelo then posted a lengthy reply to many of the questions he had received in June 2006. In that answers he refused the accusation that she became greedy.

This album contains no booklet.