AlionLive - Return 2 Madeira - Day 9 - Santana

...and on we go! I have now spent exactly one month, enjoying the rare beautiful summer weather, but still was not completely idle. The delay of the release of this video was mainly caused by some problems with the 3D intro. Therefore, a new, simpler intro sequence was used in this video.

The Plot: On the ninth day of my trip to Madeira, I decided after the weather looked promising to make the long bus ride to Santana on the north coast of the island. Do not worry: I have not filmed the entire bus ride, but only 6 minutes ;). When I arrived in Santana, I explored the area a bit, got to know the local weather phenomena and decided to hike a little further west along the coast. Here, I got lost a bit and was allmost convinced to follow a rather desperate "backup plan". However, this was not carried out because I reached a saving bus stop just in time.

The soundtrack is completely from the soon to be released album "Continuity". Yes, exactly: The new alionsonny album has a name and will be published soon. But that's another topic ;).

1. Flight of the Butterfly
2. Nero d' Avola
3. Talking Cat
4. Green Hills
5. The Storm
6. Bulletproof
7. A Sunny Day
8. Madeira

And here's the video:

AlionLive - Bikeride Hamburg -> Mölln -> Ratzeburg part 3 is online!

Because of the extensive musical activities of the past few weeks I hardly got to work on the videos. Yes, day 9 of "AlionLive - Return 2 Madeira" is already in the works too. And now that we really have plenty enough new music, it's video time. But this new music is not used in the third part of the report on the bike ride from Hamburg to Mölln, Ratzeburg back. I found simply that a visit to the historic city center of Mölln is suitable for a rather more serious form of music than a Pop-Techno and funny Reggae-ish stuff. And that's why I this time used once more music mainly from the album "Alion - The Original Soundtrack". This, plus a fitting track from the album "Reggae?" and one quite old chestnut and the soundtrack was perfect. The new music will be used somewhere else then.

Thematically, we start where we left off at the end of Part 2: On reaching the city sign of Mölln. We visit the picturesque historic city center of Mölln first for a time, and to then go on a little alcohol influenced Odyssey northeast. Here we have some quite humorous moments. At the end, and just minutes before nightfall, we end up at a peaceful place at the Ratzeburger See called "heavens meadow" to successfully end the first day of the tour.

The video is not completely free of shaky shots directly from the bike but this time these are extremely rare. But this time I was very communicative and am therefore quite often to see and hear. And now, end of the preface -> Here's the video!

New song "The Storm" available!

Exactly, the song was actually released already 2 days ago, but I had to do something else meanwhile and no time to write the blog. Yes, that happens too. On the topic: Yes, for the second time within a week a new track for the new alionsonny album was completed. No one would have expected this, after the project has paused for quite a long time, in favor of Willma and Cimelium. Thus we have 10 of the 13 tracks for the album now and this puts the release date of the album into a timespan one can call "foreseeable future". Although I do not suppose that the album will be released before my birthday on July 19th, but at least I can say with certainty that it will be relesed still in 2013.

The current song, titled "The Storm" is, is as "Flight of the Butterfly" was, on the one hand a flashback to the early days of the alionsonny project, on the other hand a big step forward. The sound might remind many of you of the time around 2007, when songs such as "Photosynthesis", "Revolution Now" or "Individuality" shaped the alionsonny sound significantly. I currently enjoy working with old concepts in new "clothing". A few new tricks in conjunction with traditional tastes and favorites can certainly provide a quite nice result. And I think that "The Storm" is a good example. The idea may well come from 2007. It also deals quite rude with the underlying musical genres Reggae and Ska, as it was the case in the days of "This is not really reggae". Parts of the song have rythm patterns fitting the played genre quite well which quickly change to patterns from totally different styles of music. Does this remind any one of the days of Polka- or Waltz-Reggae-Mashups? Well, some things do not change..

Conclusion: "The Storm" is absolutely nothing for Reggae or Ska purists, especially if they understand a mashup of their beloved genres as a sacrilege. Friends of varying experimental musical experiences with a preference for psychotic sound  episodes should be served well.

Finally a new alionsonny Song: Flight of the Butterfly!

Photo: User Beentree Wikipedia

Some thought again, the alionsonny project would be dead and buried, although the release of the last song "A Sunny Day" took place about just 3 months ago. Yes, some of my listeners are still living in those days in which pretty much I everything I created was released as an alionsonny release. And since I do no longer publish information about the releases of the projects Cimelium and Willma Poppen  at this Blog (as announced by the way) since quite a time, some even said I do no longer produce music at all anymore. Updates to the releases of these projects are recently announced in the  Cimelium Blog and the Willma Poppen Blog. The ultimate source for news about all alionmind records releases  will be the, recently not very well served, alionmind records Blog in the future. It is also recommended for Facebook users to "like" the alionsonny, Willma Poppen, Cimelium and alionmind records Facebook pages to immediately get news about the projects.

So much for the long preface. Yes, the alionsonny project is alive and there are already several songs in progress to complete the long-awaited new alionsonny album. The reception of the last  alionsonny release "A Sunny Day" was absolutely stunning. So many listeners wrote me that they like the song, and even more stunned me, that some amongst those people were not really lovers of my music before. Longtime listeners even believed, as a Facebook friend nailed it, that the alionsonny sound "finally grew up".  What a slap in the face must the latest release "Flight of the Butterfly" be for those who thought so? This song once more is a very experimental creation, which certainly allows comparisons with the early early days of the project. Why does he do that? Well, I just was in the mood for a experimenting again. And since I had just completed a rather experimental piece for Willma Poppen shortly before beginning work on "Flight of the Butterfly", I was still in the ultra creative mode, so everything went not just a bit experimental again.

As I said more alionsonny releases and the completion of the new album (still without a name) are planned for the near future. But for now, here is the new song:

AlionLive - Return 2 Madeira - day 8B is here!

An attentive blog reader alerted me to the fact that I actually forgot, to announce the new part of "AlionLive Return 2 Madeira" in this blog. Well, I am currently very busy creating music, so something like this can happen. Yes, also for the project alionsonny new sound material is being produced again. Due to some unexpected and also unpleasant events you had to wait quite long this time for the continuation of the video series "AlionLive Return 2 Madeira". In addition, I wanted to get the new 3D intro done, which also needed some time to calculate (render). Now it is finally done: The second part of day 8 is ready for viewing on Youtube. And what a part: We walk from the picturesque mountain village of Santo da Serra along the Levadas to Ribeiro Frio. There it "traditionally" begins to rain. During the walk there is plenty to see and to hear, because I did also sing a unique original song creation ;).

The soundtrack is, as for the recent hike videos, once more completely by Cimelium. It introduces two brand new songs by the Cimelium project, namely "Iacta Alea Est" from the previously announced album "Ad Hominem" and "Parque do Lido 6:30 am" from the album: Madeira. The other titles of the soundtrack are from the albums "Mesopotamia" (available on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Spotify and Routenote) and "Madeira" (published in 2013). The soundtrack in detail:

1. Inanna (Album: Mesopotamia)
2. Rabacal (Album: Madeira)
3. Lilith (Album: Mesopotamia)
4. Pico Ruivo (Album: Madeira)
5. Alea Est Iacta (Album: Ad Hominem)
6. Parque do Lido 6:30 am (album: Madeira)
7. Dumuzi (Album: Mesopotamia)
8. Ribeiro Frio (Album: Madeira)

So, here's the video. I wish you much fun!

AlionLive - Bike ride from Hamburg to Ratzeburg and Mölln - Part 2 is here!

Yes, of course: "Madeira AlionLive Return 2" will be continued. However, due to organizing "stuff", it was somewhat more favourable to first get the second part of the tour finished. We start exactly  where we left off in the first part and go from Luetjensee all the way to Mölln. This time there is even more shaky filming from the bike, but since this mainly took place on a more or less developed routes this time, the camera should not be still shaky, but somewhat less than if you go offroad. The soundtrack consists this time of a colorful mixture of songs from alionsonny, Willma Poppen and Cimelium. Even Willma Poppen's latest release "RaumReise" is featured.

The soundtrack in detail:

1. Cimelium - Cais do Sardinha (Album: Madeira)
2. alionsonny - Flowers (Album: Electronic Spacerock)
3. Cimelium - Pico Ruivo (Album: Madeira)
4. Cimelium - Cimelium - Parque do Lido 6:30 am (Album: Madeira)
5. alionsonny - Versionist Dub (Album: Dub Antiquities)
6. Willma Poppen - RaumReise (Album: Willma im Wunderland)

If somebody likes to buy the music:
The albums "Electronic Spacerock" and "Dub Antiquities" by
alionsonny are avaiable on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Spotify and
Routenote. The album "Madeira" by Cimelium and "Willma im Wunderland"
by Willma Poppen are to be released in 2013.

And here is the video:

This time Germany instead of Madeira! A new small AlionLive series is here!

After I recognized, that some viewers, Facebook friends etc. are allready quite annoyed when I only mention the word Madeira, there is now a little break, regarding those travel reports. Additionally, some  people from the most beautiful island in the world asked me to show them a bit of Germany. Why not, especially as the great weather, which outright encourages to do some biking tours?

So I jumped on my rickety bike early last weekend and ate a few kilometers, 150 km in two days to say it exactly. The route was from Hamburg to Mölln, then once completely around the Ratzeburger See to Ratzeburg and then back to Hamburg. The weather was great, but it was also somewhat hot. I again got a nice sunburn, and returned home exhausted but happy. The bike tour was wonderful and I've seen a lot of beautiful things and captured some of them for you on video.

If you want to know more about the route, here is it on Google Earth:

and here's the elevation profile:

I decided to divide the video footage (uncut 3 1/4 hours) into several parts, for the following reasons:

1. Few viewers want to watch a 3-hour video in one go. One can watch small chunks easily during a coffee break, and if you like a full-length, you can watch the playlist ;)
2. Youtube, or some display devices seem to have some problems with long videos. They stop in the middle of playback etc.
3. I can divide the footage by topics

So, now the first of the (estimated) seven parts has been cut and edited. It is a bit longer than 22 minutes and covers the first part of the tour from the north-east of Hamburg to Luetjensee, a picturesque small town in Stormarn / Schleswig Holstein. IMPORTANT: Please excuse the shaking of the camera, especially during the parts that were filmed directly while riding the bike. Filming from a bike creates shaking at all, but as a plus, the de-shaking feature of my camera somehow doesn't work anymore.

The little soundtrack consists entirely of songs by the alionsonny project, namely:

1. alionsonny - A Sunny Day
2. alionsonny - Fear No Evil
3. alionsonny - Summertime
4. alionsonny - Forest
5. alionsonny - Life Goes ON!

The songs 2,4 and 5 are from the album "alionsonny - Electronic Space Rock", which you can purchase at iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, Spotify and Routenote, if you want to help me buy a new and better camera or a long-needed replacement for my old bike.

And now have fun with the video!