Once again around Christmas and only two years after ‘The Black Riders’, my third album ‘A Wandering Mind’ was finally released. Looking back from now, short before the release of number FOUR, this two year cycle I’d been able to maintain back then is absolutely crazy. I can’t really tell how I was able to keep that pace for three albums, really.

The artwork turned out great – Matthias Kachelmann did a tremendous job with the painting. And he had convinced me to do a Digipak for the physical release. For some reason, I didn’t really like Digipaks for a long time. I was afraid they’d wear out more quickly than a jewel case CD. On the other hand, jewel cases aren’t exactly pretty either. So he convinced me and I really liked the outcome! Somehow, there’s a more natural vibe to it, similar to that of a vinyl record’s paper cover. The booklet has all the lyrics and wasn’t just two pages like before. It all became a little bit more of a package, somehow more professional as well.

The reception of AP3 was magnificent. I didn’t expect anything but I was really rewarded by a small but fine audience. They even wrote about it on the ‘Prog Archives’ forum, which was like an accolade for me. I asked a few blogs if they’d feature it (thanks to the kind people over at ‘Permafrost Today’ and ‘The Prog Loop’!) and posted about it on IG. But I didn’t even make any videos for it or had paid campaigns on the socials. But it was being played a lot on the streaming services and people bought it from bandcamp. What more can I ask for? The romanticist in me wants to feel about this happening in a way that the music in itself was good enough to attract people without much marketing.

I was flattered (and I still am) and I want to thank everybody around the world who listened (and maybe still does) to ‘A Wandering Mind’ and my other music as well. When it all was done and released, though, I felt like I needed some time to recover from the intense time of making an album and releasing it. It’s really straining to get it all done on point, although it’s the best thing to do for me and I’m generally enjoying it. So I took a holiday from AP for a few months in early 2022…

tbc