STEVE ROTHERY AND THORSTEN QUAESCHNING GO WIDESCREEN AS BIOSCOPE ON NEW LP

Their debut album, Gentō draws inspiration from the myriad methods of image capture to create a focused picture.

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Marillion guitarist Steve Rothery and Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning have teamed up in a cinematic new project, Bioscope. Their debut album, Gentō arrives on August 22 via earMUSIC.

“I spoke to Thorsten after a Marillion show in Berlin on the F.E.A.R. tour in 2018, and we got on really well,” says Rothery of the collaboration.

“We thought that it would be cool to try something together. But nothing really happened until he played a solo show in London in 2020. He had a day off the next day, so we arranged for him and his roadie to bring all his equipment up to [Marillion’s studio-cum-HQ] The Racket Club, and we jammed for the day.”

The pair bonded instantly.

“It was pretty obvious from the first note that we shared a musical vocabulary and influences,” he adds. “I had Tangerine Dream albums when I was 16 or 17 — Ricochet and Stratosfear — and it’s a kind of music that I really enjoy. And Thorsten’s a real prog head — Pink Floyd and Genesis are in his DNA.”

Rothery admits that it took a few years for the project to fully reach fruition: “It wasn’t going anywhere for a while, and then we said, ‘We've really got to finish this; there’s some really cool stuff here.”

Gentō’s five instrumental tracks bear the imprint of both men’s musical endeavours, from Rothery’s fluid guitar to Quaeschning’s evocative analogue keyboards and electronics. But it also sees them nudging each other out of their respective comfort zones, aided by Elbow drummer Alex Reeves, who also plays on the album.