The Empyrean

The Empyrean
Studio album by John Frusciante
Released	January 20, 2009
Recorded	December 2006–March 2008
Genre	Experimental rock, psychedelic rock, post-rock
Length	54:02 62:14 (Japanese release)
Label	Record Collection
Producer	John Frusciante
John Frusciante chronology
Curtains (2005) The Empyrean (2009) Omar Rodriguez-Lopez & John Frusciante (2010)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
Alternative Press
Now Magazine
The Observer
Spin	(Positive)
Sputnikmusic
Ultimate Guitar	(9/10)
Uncut
This table needs to be expanded using prose. See the guideline for more information.

The Empyrean is the tenth solo album by John Frusciante, released worldwide on January 20, 2009 through Record Collection. Frusciante does not plan on a following tour, as he instead wants to focus on writing and recording. The Empyrean peaked at number 151 on the US Billboard 200 as well as number seven on the Top Heatseekers. On release it made number 105 on the UK Albums Chart.

The word empyrean refers to the highest point in heaven. Dante, Milton and Keats used the word in their works.

Frusciante asserts that the record "was recorded on and off between December 2006 and March 2008," and is a concept album that tells "a single story both musically and lyrically." The Empyrean contains a version of Tim Buckley's "Song to the Siren", from his 1970 album Starsailor. The record also features an array of collaborators and guest musicians, including Frusciante's former band mate Flea, and friends Josh Klinghoffer and former The Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr. Due to an error at the duplication plant, the United States CD release date was delayed until January 27. On March 23, 2010, a new bonus track, Here, Air, was added to the album, freely available at John's website.

At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted mean rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 69, based on 8 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews."

John on the album

John described the album prior to its release in blogs on his official website.

"The Empyrean is a story that has no action in the physical world. It all takes place in one persons mind throughout his life. The only other character is someone who does not live in the physical world but is inside it, in the sense that he exists in peoples minds. The mind is the only place that anything can be truly said to exist. The outside world is only known to us as it appears within us by the testament of our senses. The imagination is the most real world that we know because we each know it first hand. Seeing our ideas take form is like being able to see the sun come into being. We have no equivalent to the purity of that in our account of the outside world. The outer world appears to each of us as one thing and it is always also a multitude of others. Inside to outside and outside to inside are never-ending. Trying and giving up are a form of breathing.

"My describing The Empyrean as a story is accurate from my viewpoint, but misleading, as there are no road signs to lead someone else to perceive a clear story out of it. There was no intention to write what would be seen as clear-cut story, though it is one to me. Being that it takes place in the mind of one person, no laws of time and space, or concrete relationships exist therein. This is to say that if you look into it with your logical brain you will only strain yourself and come up with nothing. The words were specifically written to document an inner experience of life, the kind that a person has extreme difficulty translating to anyone else. Part of the intention was to write words to connect with other people who have been, or are, overwhelmed by the confusing, inescapable inner world they must live in. Equal attention was given to writing words that would gently direct themselves towards the listeners' intuitive brain, and their sub-conscience, which I believe comprehends and catalogues everything in a much richer and more multi layered way than our conscious mind. Like a lot of lyrics, it was written to be perceived in as many ways as there are people hearing it. A person to whom the words have no clear, conscious meaning may derive more from it than someone who reads it as I do, and so I recommend hearing or reading it however you will. It would have been simpler to say nothing at all but this only fully occurred to me today, as I have gradually realized that by saying what it is to me, I am encouraging people to see it my way and to me, that's not what rock lyrics are for. I believe rock lyrics should be open to interpretation and I wrote these so they could be. While I could explain the story as I see it that would detract from the potential multifarious meanings that will come about from people applying their own sense of feeling from their life experience, much as they always do."

Track listing

All songs written and composed by John Frusciante, unless otherwise noted. 

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Before the Beginning"	9:09
2.	"Song to the Siren" (Tim Buckley, Larry Beckett)	3:33
3.	"Unreachable"	6:10
4.	"God"	3:23
5.	"Dark/Light"	8:30
6.	"Heaven"	4:03
7.	"Enough of Me"	4:14
8.	"Central"	7:16
9.	"One More of Me"	4:06
10.	"After the Ending"	3:38
11.	"Today" (Japanese release only)	4:38
12.	"Ah Yom" (US iTunes Store and Japanese release only)	3:17
13.	"Here, Air" (free download)	3:47

• "Enough Of Me" and "One More Of Me" play in-synch with each other once the vocals commence.

Personnel

• John Frusciante – lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar, keyboards, piano, 6 string bass on "Dark/Light" and "Central", synthesizers, drum machine
• Josh Klinghoffer – electric piano, drums, organ, piano, synthesizers, backing vocal
• Flea – bass guitar on "Unreachable," "God," "Heaven," "Enough of Me," "Today," and "Ah Yom"
• Johnny Marr – electric guitar on "Enough Of Me" and electric and acoustic guitar on "Central"
• Donald Taylor and the New Dimension Singers – backing vocals
• Sonus Quartet – strings
• Ryan Hewitt – recording engineer
• Adam Samuels – recording engineer
• Dave Lee – instrument tech
• Anthony Zamora – production coordination

Charts

Charts (2009)	Peak position
Dutch Album Chart	61
Swiss Album Chart	57
UK Albums Chart	105
US Billboard 200	151