Horizontal Ascension are
Michael Hartman - vocals & lyrics
Markus Roth - keys, drums, guitars
Achim Wierschem - guitars, keys, drums







Horizontal Ascension is finest Progressive Rock.

Horizontal Ascension is a new project of musicians Michael Hartmann, Markus Roth and Achim Wierschem. Roth and Wierschem with their joint project Marquette, Wierschem, of course, with his solo activities under the name Mindmovie and Flaming Bess. Michael Hartmann has been a guest of Marquette and Wierschem's last solo Album. 

How did the band project Horizontal Ascension come about?
 
Achim met Mike looking for a singer for his second Mindmovie solo album "Happiness And Tears".  He became aware of Markus and his great talent via the internet and the platform "MyOwnMusic". He listened to some of his songs and was deeply impressed. This led to a guest appearance by Markus on the last Flaming Bess album "The Fallen Star" and was so much fun for both of us that they decided to work more together. Marquette was a very intense collaboration and then it was clear: We want to set up a joint band project - Horizontal Ascension.

What does the name "Horizontal Ascension" mean?
The name is of course an oxymoron, with a dazzling meaning. There is the floating maiden on our album cover - or the famous "horizontal trade". But for me the name also has, let's say, "spiritual meaning": Our society strives almost everywhere for the fastest possible ascent, a career can not be steep and fast enough. Too often, many things fall by the wayside in human terms: we die from a creeping atrophy of the heart and soul. Would not it be desirable to grow slowly and comprehensively with experience? Mike's texts are full of such ideas.

Musically, it is particularly important to us to bring all our experiences into our music, so rather to open horizons than to climb the vertical heights of only one musical mountain. We are no longer living in the seventies or eighties, but we are taking the experience of that time, as well as the experience of the past two decades. From this we try to create our own musical vision. The album has an immense musical density that we are all very proud of. Despite all diversity, there should nevertheless be a sense of development, a goal that sets the direction of the journey. Whether it is forward-looking, is relatively unimportant: It remains important that the music is exciting and we grow together on the road - the listeners like to be included.