Azure was created in 1995 by Robban Kanto. Released a couple of demos and later got signed for a MCD by a small label. The release - "A Vicious Age Lasting" - was printed in 500 copies and are sold out.
Shortly after the release Robban decided to be on his own as the other members didn't really seem that interested. Instead he contacted Mattias Holmgren (Former drummer of Naglfar) to play the drums on the coming debut album. "Moonlight Legend" was released in 1999 by the German cult Label Solistitium Records (Behemoth, Helheim, Nattvindens Gråt etc). Unfortunately Solistitium shortly thereafter was put on ice, and without a contract so was Azure.
In April 2004 Robban gets a phone call from Mattias Holmgren, telling him to start compose and come up to Umeå for a recording. Said and done; in July Robban arrives to Mattias crypt and they work hard to keep the booze in the blood stream and yeah, also to record the four new songs Robban had written.
These four songs were sent out to a few record labels and in short Karmageddon Media offered a deal. Some new songs were written and in September Robban once again visited Umeå to record the album. With some help from the Embracing (Mattias band) guys they managed to put some 40+ minutes of metal on tape (or harddrive to be exact), and also a few other people contributed with some awesome work. Like Nils Norberg of Nocturnal Rites and Ulph Johansson (famous guitarist in the north of Sweden). The bass is handled by Peter Uvén of Embracing, which did some really outstanding stuff, and even showed off with a solo on the track "Selene - The Spirit".
The album cover is done by Pär Johansson (Satariel), long time friend of Robban, and the upcoming artist Hampus Johansson contributed with some great images for the booklet.
As usual, no labels are to be trusted, so the new album "King of Stars - Bearer of Dark was delayed to be released in September (first date was April) by Karmageddon, but with all their issues we decided to search for another label to release it... In the end we signed to two different ones on this release, one for the European market (Pulverised) and one for America (Deathgasm).
This autumn we will try to record a couple of new tracks as well as some old ones...
And yes, we are currently searching for a new LABEL to release our next album...
Related Links
http://www.midark.net
http://www.embracing.net
