BraveWords.com has received the following press release:

MARAZENE multi-instrumentalist and co-founder Dietrich Thrall has posted the second in an ongoing tribute to Khristopher "Kristov" Kemp, who passed away this past January after a long struggle with colon cancer, at his official blogzine Its A Thrall World.

In the new segment Dietrich explains how the band dealt with the revelation that Kris had been diagnosed with cancer a mere 10 days before they were to release their debut CD and embark on a CD mini tour, and how Kris's unwavering determination enabled him to take part in the bands eventual National tours.

An excerpt of the segment appears below:

"Cancelling the ['MachiNation'] CD shows seemed the obvious thing to do – but nothing was ever really that obvious in those days. It would have destroyed the momentum we had built up for our album and I don’t see how the math would have added up to us taking part on the National tours in ‘07. We definitely would not have been prepared for them. Odds are we would never have left Chicago and we would have always been remembered as the band that could have been. Our detractors would have loved that.

For the most part, Kris and the band received a tremendous outpouring of support from our friends in the Chicagoland area but there were a couple of notable local nitpickers and naysayers that had been doing their best to derail the bands overall progress that we had been making by stirring up the pot about “leaving Kris behind” and all sorts of nonsense. But these people never had the bands best interests in mind. These were just a few people voicing an invalid opinion about a band and a collaboration that they never really fully understood. Kris, Nikk, and myself were determined to make a musical statement the likes of which the city of Chicago would always remember.

There had to be another way and Kris and I spoke about the pros and cons of cancelling or postponing this event or that event at one of my hospital visits. Our focus was always on building for the future but that didn’t mean we weren’t keen to the possibility of obstacles along the way.

What we eventually decided to do was to turn our CD show in to a sort of tribute to Kris’s struggle and with Kris’s blessing we agreed to play the out of town shows with a sub drummer. Kris believed in our album. And he was determined to fight like hell to rejoin us as soon as he could to help push it. So with the bands complete understanding and unified from the get-go we set our sites like we wrote our music – with a bigger picture in mind.

Marazene always planned for the future – and Kris was always a part of that plan."

In the 7,000+ word memoir entitled Remembering Kristov, Dietrich sheds light on how he met Kris, how Marazene became the band it is today, overcoming the overwhelming struggles the band faced along the way, the behind-the-scenes inner workings of some of the bands most spectacular triumphs to date, and other details from 2001 thru the present time.

Kristov, as he was known to his friends and fans, was a founding member of Chicago's Marazene, whose accomplishments include the soundtrack to the Matrix: Revolutions and Matrix: Recalibrated, as well as one self-released album, MachiNation. Kristov participated in multiple National tours with Marazene from 2006-2007 and appeared in several videos for the band... which are posted on the band's YouTube channel.

Kristov also toured Nationally with New York's BILE in 2002.

Kristov was first diagnosed with intestinal cancer in May 2006 and had surgery to remove a cancerous growth and numerous lymph nodes followed by chemotherapy for much of the remainder of the year. Despite the intensive treatment, he continued to perform with Marazene as they toured the Midwest and Nationally with such acts as MUSHROOMHEAD, PSYCLON NINE, DEADSTAR ASSEMBLY, and THE HUMAN ABSTRACT.

Kristov is survived by his parents, John and Marcia Kemp, his sister Erin Kemp, his nephew Liam, and his dog Petunia.