Sunday, December 12, 2010

My Christmas Song for 2010, "Light A Candle", has been published!

Yes, this year too there's a christmas song by me. This time it is again a genuine own composition by me. First I wanted to cover an old classic christmas carrol like last year, but I just found it to be too boring... and soon dropped the idea. Then a friend of mine suggested to just compose my own christmas song and, not only because I had done this allready in 2005, I found it to be a great idea ;) Just that I didn't want it to be a reggaelike song this tim, but rather one of the typical solemn and moving songs. So I started to work somewhat before noon and at noon I allready had the maintheme and a quite elaborated concept ready. I spent most of the afternoon taming the quite hefty wall of reverb. This turned out to be a quite challenging task, as there was REALLY a big mess of interfering frequencies to be handled. From the first view, a muddy sound swamp was unavoidable. I confess, that I never before drenched a musical work in reverb like this time. But somehow magically the de-mudding of the track was rather easy and until the evening I had some time to work at some variations and glitter. Around 8:00 pm everything was done. Even selecting a songtitle, which usually nearly drives me nuts, was only a matter of a few minutes. I can safely say, that there has never before been a song which went so smooth thru all parts of its creation. Sometimes you just have a great day ;)

And here is the little gem. I is titled "Light A Candle". Enjoy!

Light A Candle - LISTEN
Light A Candle - DOWNLOAD

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

New things on alionsonny.com!

Yaeh, some stuff has changed and there's a lot more about to happen. Because of a little flu-attack I was not able to accomplish as much as I wanted during the past 1 1/2 weeks, but I want my dear readers and listeners to know about what was still done.

In the main menu you now find an item titled "Sponsoring", which takes you to a page where you can find out about how you can support the alionsonny musicproject. Currently the only option offered is the sponsoring of single songs, but there's more about to come and because of that, this page is currently under permanent development. So it pays to check back from time to time.

Now that is interesting for all of you, who have a business, a product, a website, a blog etc. to advertise for. You just have to donate a VERY SMALL amount of money via the donation page, to be exact ONE EURO and your advertisement will be placed for a whole month on the page which opens for the sponsored song to play and download it. I don't think you find a cheaper way to advertise anywhere. I confess that this is a special offer to get things running. Once it all works, the price will most probably go up, so take your chance while it is still that cheap!

In the course of making songsponsoring possible, I had to make the process of listening to or downloading songs a bit more complicated. But due to the fact, that the idea regarding voluntary donations from listeners didn't work, I had to do this. Download- and streamingbuttons for the songs have completely vanished from the song list page. Instead of using them, you have to now click on the titel of the particular song, which takes you to a page where (if there's a sponsor) the sponsors advertising and a donation reminder is shown, a Flashplayer and also Stream-/Downloadlinks.

Well. that's it so far. Because of the fact that I will work a lot at alionsonny.com in the future, be prepared for some tough changes, surprises and of cause bugs and faillures. Bug reports are allways appreciated, because I cannot find all glitches myself. So if you report them to me, you help me to make alionsonny.com better.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Planned new features on alionsonny.com and other news...

Some time ago I informed my beloved listeners and readers about the fact, that I will increasingly put a focus on how to get some cash out of my works such as making music. To put it exactly: In the long run I want to make a living out of my works solely.

As part of this strategy, I am now about to change some parts of alionsonny.com. Some of the changes will please everybody and some of the changes will piss people off. But you cannot imagine how little I care about that ;) As a first step, statistics will be collected about the number of plays and downloads of songs. The reason is, that, using the currently used technique, I have not the slightest clue about how many times the songs get streamed or downloaded. Notice: No personal user data will be collected, so your privacy remain untouched. The implementation of the statistics collecting also allows me to implement annoying little windows which pop up when a download is started, which remember the forgetful amongst you of the fact, that donations are more than welcome. Furthermore, this creates the basis for another income concept, the Song-sponsorship, which I will describe in a separate blog for interested individuals and business people.

One interesting and certainly most welcomed change is that it will be possible to buy my music in the future in high sound quality. For this, I will work on a separate shop, where my albums can be downloaded as CD images. There will be alionsonny merchandise available, such as the the often asked for T-Shirts, but also stuff like mugs etc. For this I will most probably use external service providers such as Spreadshirt and Cafepress.

So far for now. If you have any comments or questions about those new features: Feedback is allways highly appreciated!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

New album "Electronic Spacerock" has been released!

This has been never before since the alionsonny project has been launched in 2004. What? Simple: Never before I released two albums in one year. And now it has happened: After the (at least fo me) overwhelming success of "Alion - Original Soundtrack", I release today, Anno 2010, another album titled "Electronic Spacerock". And this album is also a brandnew thing, because it is 100% different from all albums I published before. No Reggae, no Soundtrack Music, but only synthesizer music, influenced by the sound of 1980's syntheszizer music, categorized by others often as Synthpop or Electronica. I call it Electronic Spacerock, because the concept of this music is to create rockmusic usually played using a typical rockband setup with synthesizers only. A additional part of the concept is to tske advantage of techniques which can be only be created using synthesizers and especially sequencing, such as drumpatterns impossible to play for a drummer or keyboard lines, which are not really playable for a keyboarder because they are, for example, too fast to be played by a human being. The album contains mostly songs from 2009 to 2010 but also songs which are from the years 2006 to 2008. To be exact there are five songs from 2010, three from 2009, one from 2008, two from 2007 and also two from 2006 on this album. Enough words, here's the album, of course FOR FREE. The complete album, including high resolution coverart, will be available in form of a RAR-archive on my limited webspace for a time. Just use this link to download it. You can also view the coverart and something about how it was created on my graphics blog. Just click here to get there. If you just want to check out the music and don't want to download the whole package now, you can also find it for listening on this page on LastFM.

I am allways glad if you spread the word about my releases and I am even more glad about short or long reviews on your Blogs. Just let me know if you do one and I'll be sure to mention them on my blogs and provide backlinks to your blogs.

HAVE FUN!

Friday, November 5, 2010

New Song "80's 4 Ever" has been released!

Yes, again it took a bit of time, but a new song titled "80's 4 Ever" has been released. To be exactly, it has been released yesterday allready and all who follow my news on Twitter, Facebook etc. were the the first to know about it. Why does the news appear here one day later? Well some stuff happened... There's not much to say about the new song. The title "80's 4 Ever" says it all. Again it is 80's style Synthpop music. Yes, I do quite a lot of music in that style recently, but don't worry: All my other styles will be back some day. Currently I have lot's of fun doing 80's style Synthpop music, that's it. But there's some more about the release of this new song. It is the last song I needed for the release of a brandnew complete album with music of that genre. This means, soon a new alionsonny album will be released. The working title (and most probably the final title) will be "Electronic Spacerock". The album release may take some time as I have to do some nice covergraphics first. The concept for the graphics is allready finnished, so I just have to create it.

But enough words, here's the new song. Again I embed the Soundcloud player, which will no longer work once I have to delete this song from my limited space at Soundcloud to free up space for another one:

If this happens, the old trusted links below will still work:
80's 4 Ever - LISTEN
80's 4 Ever - DOWNLOAD

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Let's talk about MONEY!

After I published my statement titled "Why I give away my music for free" several nice people contacted meby mail or Messenger, to discuss how I still could make money with my music and other creative activities, yes, maybe even how I could live of it.

Especially in a messenger conference, people suggested a lot of interesting ideas to me, which I want to tell you about and discuss with you. Here are, among other things, by a group conference on Messenger, some good ideas come about, I would like you of course not denied. I would be very happy if more of you would connect with me in constructive dialogue in order to perhaps develop additional concepts.

Some of you probably know nothing about my financial situation and I will now describe it briefly: I am currently Hartz IV recipient.

That means that I get, if the unemployment office is not busy harrassing me as it is currently the case, unemployment benefit. It all happened like this: By mid 2009, I was a self-employed IT consultant. Unfortunately, it went all down the drain when, because of the economic crisis, I lost all my contractors one by one. One day I saw no other chance than repoting myself as unemployed. In addition, my health went bad and I am diagnosed by the doctors as unable to work since December 2009. Unfortunately, there are folks at the unemployment office who love to harrass unemployed people and delay or cancel the payment of unemployment benefit just for the sake of it. Therefore the payment of unemployment benefit II is anything but regular. I had several cases in which I got no money for some months, and therefore could not pay my rent. This is the case currently again. So much for my situation.

Since I would be VERY HAPPY to live again of my self earned money instead of the unemployment benefit and my chances to find a regular job are rather bad, I am looking for ways to live of what I do anyway, such as making music. As I said, I discussed with nice and benevolent people about ways to achieve this. The current status is this: Although many people seem to like my music, but fail to send a donation from time to time. Except for a one great person who supported me for months, I get almost no donations. That is, in the face of thousands of downloads of my music, very depressing. This has shown very clearly that the idea about voluntary donations does not work.

The logical consequence would be to follow the opinion of my discussion partners, to take down all free downloads of my music from the Internet, and to demand money for each download. As I described in my statement, that is not at all compatible with my principles. A discusion partner said the following: "You have to be able to afford principles". He is most probably right with that statement. Therefore, I think reserve the option to make my music available for cash only as a last resort. But before I take such a crass step which conflicts with my priciples, I'll still try a few other ideas. If those ideas fail like the idea regarding voluntary donations, I'll definately take the last option an make all my music available for cash only.

In the coming blogposts I will explain to you the ideas I've collected for the future with my supporters and launch a survey on these ideas. As a little incentive to you to participate in the planning / discussion, I will be giving away multiple downloads of individual songs and entire albums in high quality uncompressed format. Do not miss this chance, because MP3 is nice, but not really good. So stay tuned.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Why I give away my music for free

In the past six years, since I started releasing music under the artistname alionsonny, one question has been asked over and over again: Why do I give away my music for free instead of selling it? I want to answer this question in this article.

First of all: Some nasty folks claimed that the reason is, that my music was so bad, that I had no chance at all to sell it. Of cause I do not share that opinion. What sense would it make to release music if I had the opinion it was bad music? Additionally, the many thousands of downloads of my music speak louder than words. Because it is possible to listen to every song before downloading it, it is also not true if people claim that those downloads were just made to check the music. Who would download a song, if he thinks it is bad after listening to it?

The main reason that I give away my music for free lies in the fact that I am firmly convinced that it should never be mandatory to pay for being able to enjoy art and culture. The artist has never payed a single cent for his gift to be able to create art and so it is simply not ok to to mandatory require money for the fruits of this gift. There are many people who can not afford to pay money for music. My opinion is that the decision whether or how much to pay should be left to the people. I once referred to me as the "busker of the Internet". I have spent some time as street musician and felt it to be extremely nice when people have voluntary gave a donation for my work to me. I feel this voluntary giving as a much greater confirmation than as if I had forced the people to pay.

I also think that if one sees art as some kind of a dayjob, creativity, and thus the art itself is no longer the main driving force of creating art. This kills creativity and thus the art. Take for example the music industry. They usually publish only "what sells". This means that only what a large majority is willing to buy is to be published. The majority of the record companies will produce only sign an artist, who produces so-called mainstream music. The record companies decide what will be produced and published, based on sales experience of the past, because nobody can predict what will possibly sell good in the future. But how can a music of the future can be created if the record companies solely decide based on sales numbers of the past? I have seen many artists who started with promising concepts and great creativity, which had one or two big hits and after they signed with a record label, they were forced by the label to produce slightly modified copies of those hit singles instead of really new songs. You can not even blame the record companies for what they do. Record companies are profit-oriented businesses. For them everything depends on sales and not on artistic standards and creativity.

However, this has a fatal consequence: The music industry has such a market power, that artists who did not sign a contract with a big record label have little or no chance of being noticed by the audience. What most of the people are listening to and buy is, what is on the television and radio etc.. Radio and television stations are also business enterprises and require loads of money for artist promotion. And the music industry has the money to pay them. But no unsihned independent artis has so much cash. No independent artist can keep up with the monetary power of the music industry. No independent musician has a million budget for advertising. My favorite comparison is between a poor and a rich merchant in a market. The rich merchants has an expensive sound system with which he can draw attention to its products, while the poorer merchant relies solely on his voice. The products of the poorer trader can be as good or even better than those of the rich merchant and he may also have a very loud voice. Against the sound system he just can not compete. So he remains poor, because buyers do not even notice him and his products.

Because of that situation, some of my critics are right when they say that I have no chance against the overwhelming uniformity of industrial productions. I can not keep up with the aggressive marketing of the industry, which is backed up with large advertising budgets. I can do as much as I can much to make my music known to the public, it will not change the big picture. And yes, those who say that I allready capitulated. IF I wanted to make a living with my music, I must somehow get a minimum of money out of my works which enables me to pay my rent and food. And if even not that small ammount of cash comes in, what sense does it make to make it mandatory to pay for downloading my music.

For this reason, I ask all those who love my music, to donate some cash from time to time. It shows me the fact that you like what I do. It is very easy because you can donate via Paypal. If you do not like Paypal, or don't want to use it for any other reason, you can also transfer the donation to my bank account.

Monday, October 11, 2010

New song "Never born to follow" has been released!

Well, that was about time, eh? Over a month of silence between two song releases is not really a thing that should happen, but I needed the time for myself. Not that it is any of your business ;) but I started to take the treatment for my depression into my own hands and stopped taking those stupid pills. The result can be only described as full SUCCESS. Once I finnished the whole process, I'll maybe let you know about it all. But I can here and now safely say, that I am out of the biggest mess. A clear sign for that is my latest work "Never born to follow". I uploaded it on assorted websites on Thursday and Friday allready and the feedback is overwhelming. The audience allready confirmed, that this is maybe the by far best song I ever created. That's what I think too. The song has again a very strong influence of 80s music and also EBM, Techno anhd Synthpop. But why am I trying to describe how it sounds while you can listen to it yourself? This time I'll embed the Soundcloud songplayer for convienience:


The player will vanish someday, because my space on Soundcloud is limited and because of this I give you also the well known links which will ALLWAYS work:
Never born to follow - LISTEN
Never born to follow - DOWNLOAD

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Late Update: New song "Rise & Shine" is OUT!

No, it's not because of lazyness, that I update this blog about the release of my latest song "Rise & Shine" 2 days after it has been released. It is, because I didn't want to push the news about the release of the "Alion - The Original Soundtrack" album off my Homepage. As you know, only the latest blogposting is shown on my homepage and this posting pushes away the album release posting. Meanwhile there were over 7000 downloads of the album. So I think it is safe now that another news post replaces the album release post.
So far for this. Two days ago, I released a the new song "Rise & Shine". This time it is no Reggae track, no part of the "Alion Meditations" series and no orchstral soundtrack title, but nice and pure 80s synthpop with a touch of Techno. "Rise & Shine" seems to be much appreciated by the audience, because I got very nice reviews and comments on the various music upload sites where I uploaded it. Thanks for all the nice feedback! So here it is, "Rise & Shine":

Rise & Shine - LISTEN
Rise & Shine - DOWNLOAD

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Alion - The Original Soundtrack is finally released!

Yes, it is done! After a year of work the music album "Alion -The Original Soundtrack" is out. This is my first album with 100% NO Reggae influence in it but mostly orchestral arrangements. Those of you who read this blog frequently will most likely know what I am talking about, if I write about the "Alion Original Soundtrack" project. Those who, for what reason even do not, should follow THIS LINK to learn about it. The album contains, like its predecessors, 13 tracks and this time there's not just a single image to stick into the frontslot of a jewelcase, but a complete set of coverartwork mostly created unsing Blender 3D with a little help of the GIMP. Have a look at it on my AlionVisualArts-Blog.

This artwork is also included in the album rar-archive which you can download from this link: DOWNLOAD THE ALBUM. As allways, this album is available for completely FREE DOWNLOAD. I'll keep it on my limited webspace for quite a while.

It is currently also available on LastFM and later it will be available from each and every good music download site on the web. So grab your copy, enjoy and let me know what you think about it.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

The last song of the "Alion Original Soundtrack" album is OUT!

Yes, after over a year of work the last song, song #13 of the Alion Original Soundtrack project is finnished. This took some time because of my little recent creative blockade and also because this was a very special song to create. It is a reprise of the "Theme of Alion" which will be track #1 on the album. It is nearly the same compostion and arrangement as the original theme, except for that it is a stripped down version for two Grand Pianos. It was quite difficult for me to get this song sound good with such a tiny number of sound possiblities. It is compltely different if you have the choice of a whole orchestration or just two pianos. It was a challenge and I think I mastered it very well. So let's go straight to the music. Here's "Theme of Alion Reprise"

Theme of Alion Reprise - Alion OST - LISTEN
Theme of Alion Reprise - Alion OST - DOWNLOAD

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

New Track "Meditation Six" is out!

Well, that took quite some time again. As some of you know, some major changes took place in my life and for that reason I was down and had a huge creative blocking which kept me from doings any creative work. Well, I think and hope this is over now. My first release after that little pause is the sixth track of the "Alion Meditations" series. It is REALLY unusual and I suggest that you do not listen to this track if you are on ANY drugs. I tried to put my current state of mind and feelings into this one. This is why this is no realy composition. It has no real melody, no fancy hookline. In fact I am not sure if it is music at all. But I WANTED to do this and so I did. If some of you or even one single listener on earth enjoys it, I am glad about it. If notm I don't even care. I want to do more just for the sake of doing it. So here's "Meditation Six":

Meditation Six - LISTEN
Meditation Six - DOWNLOAD

Friday, July 9, 2010

News from the Willma Poppen Project

First I want to shout out to all of you who think that there's not enough happening here "SO WHAT? ARE YOU PAYING ME?". Well that did good ;) Ok, seriously: Actually I am allways working at one of my various projects and if some of you are unable to keep track of it all after I posted the links to my projects several times, it is not my problem. The really cool ones of you ;) are allways up to date via Twitter at all and the other, well, they have to wait. And while we are talking about my various projects: There's news from Willma. Wilma who? Willma Poppen, aka the Willma Poppen Project. Still no clue? This website will help you.
And the Willma Poppen Project has released a new song. After two years of total silence, those of you who enjoyed the tracks from 2008 will be very happy, I think. Well, so we stop the talking and let the music do the talking:

Willma Poppen - Herores of the Popp-Culture - LISTEN
Willma Poppen - Herores of the Popp-Culture - DOWNLOAD

Monday, June 21, 2010

On we go with the "Alion Meditation" Series!

Many have asked when a new song für the "Alion Meditation" will be published again. Ok, two moths have passed and I know a lot of you folks out there love, for whatever reason, that series. I know this from all your nice mails AND the download stats on various music upload sites. "Alion Meditations" seems to be BY FAR my most successfull music project so far. Well, I don't get it ;) So here's part 5. It is not as strange as, for example, part 1, but I think you'll still like it. Soon I'll publish some "behind the scenes information" which will give you an idea about the connection of the music to my "meditative experiments". But for now have fun with another relaxing, chilling piece of alionsonny music:

Meditation Five - LISTEN
Meditation Five - DOWNLOAD

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Finally a new "reggaelike" Track - "Going Bonkers"

Yes, rejoice my children! The wait is over. Here's a new "reggaelike" alionsonny track. May the purists rant and rave, may they curse and rotate in highspeed. The big Reggae Blasphemer has done it again. Friend to whom I showed the track before releasing it say that it IS Reggae and that there's no doubt about this. But hey, I love it to sa that it is just reggaelike and it is in my unique style. I am unable to do simply Reggae. I create AlionReggae! That's a totally different thing and it is good that way. So now you maybe ask yourself: Why that title of the song. Well, I just say so much: It reflects my current mental state. Nuff said, listen to the music:

Going BONKERS - LISTEN
Going BONKERS - DOWNLOAD

Sunday, May 30, 2010

"Shadows Of The Past" - Track # 12 for "Alion Original Soundtrack" project has been released!

After our heroes have mastered all the dangers of the old mine, in which the former archmage of Alion live, they stand before him face to face at last. As expected, the old man is anything but enthusiastic of their visit. He understands, however, that someone who is willing to face all the dangers on the way to him, must have a good reason to stand before him.
Impatiently, he asks what leads the uninvited visitors to him. Our heroes describe as detailled, but also as brief as possible what has happened at Alion Castle. With each detail they describes, his face gets darker and when they ask him if he know what is possibly going on and if he knows a way to stop the evil, he breaks out in a rage which completely baffles our heroes. "Do I know what is going on? Of course, how could I not know? I warned the fools at Alion Castle for years that just that will happen one day! What do YOU think made me leave behind my life as the archmage and high priest of Alion? One does not just say: Ok, I'm gonna live out in the wilderness, leave behind the life I used to live just because of I don't know! No I was sick and tired of being treated like a fool just because I tried to warn the blockheads at the court of the king of the evilwhich was lying ahead. But... how can I expect you to understand, what even the most educated people at the kings court were not able to grasp?
When the old man finishes his outburst, with some evil curses, he asks, "So, the king, the old fool on the throne of Alion I dead?". His forehead wrinkles got even deeper and he remarked quietly, "Not for long, he will not be dead for long. Well, not really dead... but ...".
Our heroes of course do not understand a word of what the old Archmage tells them. And they ask him if he can tell them this all from the beginning. The old man frowns and says softly, "Well, then I'll try. I will tell you the whole story. Not that I would have even the slightest hope that of ALL people YOU are able to understand, but an attempt can do no harm... "
He then tells a long story about an old threat that he once, when he explored the history Alion. discovered and how he had tried to warn the king and the elders of Alion. This new track of the "Alion Original Soundtrack is the music for this story.

NOTE I started to write this story, but it proved to be too long to put it in this song description. I will soon publish the entire history of the heroes of Alion and of cause a detailled version of the part about the causes of the threat, which I just described briefly in this text. I'll do this in form of a new Blog, titled "Tales of Alion". Yes I plan to become a writer :D Stay tuned, because this wioll become exciting!

Shadows Of The Past - LISTEN
Shadows Of The Past - DOWNLOAD

Sunday, May 23, 2010

"Mystic Caves": A new track for the "Alion Original Soundtrack" project has just been released!

Yes, and on we go, heading towards finnishing the "Alion Original Soundtrack"-Project. As all alionsonny albums, the album "Alion Original Soundtrack" will contain 13 tracks. And as this is track number 11, there's only 2 tracks to go until that megaproject can be released. I am allready working at some nice coverart. Stay tuned on Twitter to follow the development.
And now, as for all songs, here's the story for this track titled "Mystic Caves" which is rather short compared to the stories behind the previous tracks: After our heroes arrived at "Elven Grove" they are told by the elvens living there, that the hermit former archmage they came to see is not living at "Elven Grove" but in some caves nearby. Even "Elven Grove" was not solitary enough for him and so he decided to live in a abandoned mine. The elven warn our heroes that it would not be very easy to speak with that man, because he secured the caves with loads of traps and magic spells to keep away unwanted visitors. In fact each visitor seems to be unwanted at this place. This track of the soundtrack reflects the mysterious and dangerous caves atmosphere and feeling.

Mystic Caves - LISTEN
Mystic Caves - DOWNLOAD

Monday, May 17, 2010

New song for the "Alion Original Soundtrack"-project is out: "The Elven Grove"

It took some time, but track number ten of the "Alion Original Soundtrack"-project has just been released. Somehow I had some kind of a creative block during the past week, but now it is done and I finnished a new song.
Time to tell the story behind this song. As you maybe remember, "Alion Castle" is under a siege of a enemy army of unknown origin. Right after our heroes saw the massive ammount of troops around the city walls from a watchtower, a messenger approached and told them, that the priest of the local temple who is also the archmage urgently needs to speak with them.
So our heroes enter the great temple of "Alion Castle" and the archmage tells our heroes that they have to find out what is happening and why those troops are attacking "Alion Castle". He says, that he can imagine just one person in the world to know more about it and what to do now.
This person is the former archmage of "Alion Castle" who is currently living at "Elven Grove", the place where the Elven of the forest are living. He says that this man will not not be very glad to be disturbed because after being the archmage of "Alion Castle" he decided to live as a hermit in the forest with the Elven. But he also says, that whatever it takes, our heroes have to speak with this man. So out heroes sneak out of the castle using a secret tunnel and also sneak thru the siege. They see that everything around the castle, farms and houses are burned down. Carefully they travel back thru the "Alion Forest" until they arrive at "Elven Grove". This song you are about to listen to is the theme for the "Elven Grove"-settlement, where the Elven live in treehouses and other small wooden houses.

The Elven Grove - LISTEN
The Elven Grove - DOWNLOAD

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

New song "The Siege" for the "Alion Original Soundtrack"-Project has just been released!

This is track #9 for the "Alion Original Soundtrack". The story for it is as follows: After the assasination of the king (Track "A Kings Funeral"), our heroes needed a bit of distraction and did a bit of sightseeing and visited the city which surrounds Alion Castle (Track: "Alion Castle Theme"). But they did not get much time to relax, because at the evening of the day, they got to hear that a big army is gathering around the city walls. Nobody knows who those troops are and where they came from, let alone who is their leader. One thing is sure: The assasination of the king was just the prelude for much more trouble to come. As our heroes get up on a watchtower from where they can see the area in front of the city gates, they see a horrifying scenario: from the city wall to the horizon they see hundreds, if not thousands of armed troops preparing to attack Alion Castle or at least for a long siege of the city and the castle. And this scenario they face is what this song is reflecting.

The Siege (Alion OST) - LISTEN
The Siege (Alion OST) - DOWNLOAD

Friday, April 30, 2010

alionsonny.com under construction!

This is to inform you about the fact that alionsonny.com (and now alionsonny.de) will be under heavy construction for several hours. As this will be an "open heart surgery", it is most likely that you'll experience strange, weird and maybe funny effects which are related to the reconstruction. So why is it? I am happy to announce that I got the alionsonny.de-domain, which will be now a starting page for all german speaking people to the alionsonny-website. My provider upgraded my webpackage without charging me more cash and included are 4 four additional domains. I will have now to change the language dfriven part of the websites underlying system to make it all work. I'll also take this as an opportunity to improve some of the php-code and site features. Stay tuned and bear with me in the times of change.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Track #8 for the "Alion Original Soundtrack"-Project "Alion Castle Theme" is online!

Yes, I've done it again! Another song for the "Alion Original Soundtrack"-Project is ready for you to listen and download for free. This song is for exploring "Alion Castle" and the city of "Alion" that surrounds it. This song is meant to sound very majestic, reflecting the beauty and greatness of the castle and the city. This time I completely ommited a drum or percussion part. For my taste, the instruments add enough rythm and accentuation to the song. If you are really missing any drums and percussion in this song, there'll be more than enough in the next song ;)

Alion Castle Theme (Alion OST) - LISTEN

Alion Castle Theme (Alion OST) - FREE DOWNLOAD

Monday, April 26, 2010

New song "Aurora Borealis" has just been released!

After a very creative week during which I released 3 new songs, I needed a little break. But now a brandnew song has been released. This time it is hard to describe what kind of music it is. I would call it chillout music, but I'm sure that there will some people out there who will disagree with that. But no matter in what genre you think this new song fits, it is of cause a typical alionsonny production. Enough words, here's the music:

Aurora Borealis - STREAM
Aurora Borealis - DOWNLOAD

Friday, April 16, 2010

"Nero d' Avola" on the genuine alionsonny "Nero d' Avola"-Riddim is OUT NOW!

Finally a new alionsonny Dub-Reggae production. This song is dedicated to my favorite red wine the great and unique "Nero d' Avola". This song is on a genuine riddim by alionsonny, the "Nero d' Avola"-Riddim! Some folks will most probably again complain, that "this is not really Reggae" or no Reggae at all. Well I don't care. For me it is Reggae and this is what counts in the end. So here it is, my latest REGGAE production:

Nero d' Avola - LISTEN

Nero d' Avola - DOWNLOAD

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

"Alion Meditations" - "Meditation Four" is out now!

YES, this is a very creative week. 3 songs in 3 days, that's not bad ;) After releasing two new songs for the "Alion Original Soundtrack"-project, I wanted to do something without orchestral soundtrack arrangements, something to relax. And what's better for that, than a brandnew track for the "Alion Meditations"-project of which I know that not just a few people like it and are waiting for more tracks? Many thanks to the folks out there who wrote me very positive and encouraging comments and mails for the previous parts. So here it is, track number four:

Meditation Four - LISTEN
Meditation Four - DOWNLOAD

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

"Alion Original Soundtrack" - "The Kings Funeral" out now!

Seems I am in a springtime creative rush these days. Just yesterday I released the battle theme for the "Alion Original Soundtrack" project and just one day later, today, another track for this epic album is ready. This may also be, because I have developed a new way of creating harmonics, melodies and arrangements. This is a real breakthru. Ok, it would take really too much time to explain it to you and I would most probably not be able to do it at all as it is all free floating in my head. I just can say that much: It is a new way of viewing and understanding musical theory which suits my mindset a lot more than the well known schemes.

Ok, what's the story for this track? Here it is:
After the attack at the Alion River Valley, the head of the Alion Cityguard tells our heroes, that the attackers were not just walking by and thinking "Hey, lets attack those people!", but were fleeing from the City Guards men, because some time ago they carried out an attack right on Alion Castle and most probably tried to murder the king. He says that he must urgently return to Alion Castle to see of the king is ok. Our heroes join him and when they arrive at Alion Castle, they get to know that the king was wounded that much in battle, that he had died. This song is the theme for the kings funeral which occurs within three days after his death, as the tradition tells it shall be done.

People, seriously, I had not only one time tears in my eyes when I did this track, because I had pictures of that fictonal funeral in my head while producing it and I crafted the several parts of this track according to those pictures. I think this track sounds beautiful and strong at the same time. But it also is quite full of sorrow in some way. I think I must do a happier tune for the next track ;)

The Kings Funeral (Alion OST) - LISTEN
The Kings Funeral (Alion OST) - DOWNLOAD

Monday, April 12, 2010

... and on we go with the "Alion Original Soundtrack"-Project: Battle Theme 1

After quite a long time it finally goes on with the "Alion Original Soundtrack"-Project. I have to confess that I underestimated how difficult it would be to create a battle-them for a soundtrack. I NEVER thought that this would probably be the most difficult part of the whole project. Well, because I follow a well defined storyline, the inability to compose the battle-theme in a suitable way, blocked all further steps. This is why nothing happened for such a long time. I have to say, that I am quite glad, that I decided to do that fictional soundtrack prior to search for any real challenges at soundtrack project to work at. I allready learned a lot during this project, for example, that a battle-theme is not as easy to do as it ought to be.

This is track 6 of this project, which is planed to have 13 tracks and as I said allready, I learned a lot while doing those 6 tracks. I am excited and at the same time horrified when I think about what teachings and frustrations will come my way during the process of composing the 7 tracks still to do. Because of the fact, that the battle-theme blocked me for such a long time, I allready have at least 3 of the tracks folloing it in more or less advanced state of completion. So it will (hopefully) go on swiftly, so that I am hopefully able to release the album prior to my 42. birthday. This album will not be only downloadable for free as low quality MP3's but also be available for purchase in high quality format at all well known commercial online music distributors.

Now the story for this battle-theme:
In the last chapter (The River Valley), Our group of heroes was busy decimating the wildlife population at the Alion River Valley. Suddenly they are disturbed by a group of fighters approaching, immediately drawing their weapons, which are strangely allready quite breathless. Anyway, a fight is unavoidable. At the time when our heroes allmost defeated the enemy, another group of fighters approaches on horses. The armor and the coats of arms on it identify them easily as members of the Alion Cityguard. The rest of the enemies flee because of the obvious predominance of their opponents. Cityguard? What are they doing here? Are they comming to help a group of wandering heroes who were attacked while hunting? There must be something else....

To be continued in the next chapter...

Battle Theme 1 (Alion OST) - LISTEN
Battle Theme 1 (Alion OST) - DOWNLOAD

Thursday, April 1, 2010

alionsonny's Music in 7 Youtube-Videos of other Youtubers

Recently, when I was told by a "worried fan", that "somebody was using my music in his own videos", I had the idea to enter my artistname into the searchbox of Youtube to find out if there were more videos using my music as a soundtrack. Well, I was quite surprised, that there were at least 7 videos on Youtube with my music, which were not produced by me but other Youtubers. I say at least because I am quite sure that there are at least 7 more videos with my music on Youtube where the makers didn't bother giving me credits. Shame may be upon them. But my "worried fan" can safely stop worrying, because I published all my songs under a Creative Commons License NonCommercial No Derivs. And because of this, it is 100% ok to use my music in own videos as long as they are not commercial and the music is not altered, remixed, cutted etc. But if somebody wants to advertise a business or a commercial product, he should better get clearance upfront (eg. ask me for permission) or the video would be taken down very quick. ;)

In all other cases, for example the 7 videos linked below, I feel very honored, because it shows again that there are people out there who like what I do. And I want to encourage all who read this and hesitated to use my music in videos to do so. And PLEASE let me know about it! I apreciate that! Ok, and here's the 7 Youtube Videos I found so far using my music as a soundtrack. If you know more, please let me know.

Road Movie Clips - Destined for the bin by Bevoin1970


Tesori d'Orlando - 4 - Villa Piccolo e Castello Bastione - Capo d'Orlando by DigiLabStudio


Hamburg / Alionsonny by WhiteRosePl


St Paddy's Day Party in Second Life by Larkworthy


mountainbiking on mars - alionsonny (sidewalk art - julian beever) by cwd543


Cable Dance by juwimuwi


350 Make a Choice by MuskokaDreamscape

Thursday, March 25, 2010

New song "Meditation Three"

It was just 2 days ago when I released my song "Sunrise" and, yes, here's another song. You see: Springtime and sunshine make me creative. The dark winter days are over and I'm back in full force. The song is part 3 of the "Alion Meditations" Series. This time it is even more strange and "spacy" than the first 2 parts. Most of you know me to put much time into melody composition, but this time it is different. It is maybe a step back into my early days of producing music in 2004-2005 when I put more time into "dubbing" and effects use. There's no fancy melody/hookline this time but just 6 minutes of effects freakout. I had a real hard time taming all those filtered sounds and if the limiter had been never invented, I would have to invent it for this track ;) It is a REAL soundmonster and I have 2 advises for you: 1. Dont listen to this if you are on ANY drugs and 2. think twice before you turn the volume up. There's some parts in this track where I think you would be sorry afterwards for doing so.

Much words, let the sounds speak:

Meditation Three - STREAM
Meditation Three - DOWNLOAD

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

New Song: Sunrise

I have spend most of the time recently working at the musicvideo for "Meditation Two" in Blender, a really epic project. But still I found the time to get a new song, called "Sunrise", ready for release.

It is what people call Chillout- or Ambientmusic these days, and so it is a very calm and relaxing song. First I thought about making it part 3 of the "Alion Meditation"-Series, but after all I decided that it would not fit that good.

But enough words. Let the music speak for itself:

Sunrise - STREAM

Sunrise - DOWNLOAD

A few words for those who are worried about the fact that nothing happened at the projects "Alion Original Soundtrack" and "Classic Reggae Riddms Orcastrated". I am of cause still working at those projects, stay tuned...

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

New Song "Green Hills"

Well, I INDEED forgot to mention the new Song here on my own homepage out of all pages on the web. Is this still excusable? Well I think so, because I am only accountable to my self. And I think this is completely ok. And, hey: Better late than never, eh? And here it is: My latest song. Again it is somthing "reggaelike". Some folks allready said in forums or via mail, that this is indeed real Reggae. But, folks, I don't fall for that anymore. How often people told me that a song of mine was real Reggae, and then when I called it Reggae myself in forums etc., the result was the old and very well known "this is not really Reggae". ;) And know what? I don't really care if it is actually Reggae or not. It is my music, which you like or don't like. So all what's left for me is to hope that you like this new song. And if not? Well, dammit, that's how life goes :D

But now after all those words, let the music speak for itself:
GREEN HILLS STREAM
GREEN HILLS DOWNLOAD

Monday, February 15, 2010

New song release: Hava Nagila

My latest song is an old jewish Klezmer (Folk) song I wanted to cover for quite a looong time. Last week I finally had an idea how to do it in a new style. And the result is a reggaelike track again.Strangely after I had the basic melody done, it was less work than expected. The ideas were there right when I needed them. I would say, I did this track in less then a tenth of the time I usually spend on producing a song. Still it is, as I think, one of the best mixed and arranged productions I ever did. I think I must do more jewish folk music. In fact I have allready some songs of that kind on my list. But on the other hand, I have at least an album of other songs which need just some polishing to be ready for release. We'll see... For now have fun with "Hava Nagila":

STREAM
DOWNLOAD

Saturday, January 30, 2010

New song "Meditation Two" out now!

Yes, it's been a while since I released my last song. Over a month without a song release by me drove some chronical worried folks to write me mails, asking what has happened to me and if everything is allright. And now, on the occasion of releasing this new song, I can give the answer to this question to you all: Yes everything is ok so far. I'm still depressed and unemployed, but I'm alive. What have I done all the time? Well I worked at songs, what else? And I started programming in C++ again and that's what I spent most of the time with. Those who want to be up to date what I am doing in that field, may visit my brandnew blog I set up just for that purpose:

The Alion Code

Currently it is just in german language, I am sorry. But if I keep each and everything bilingual, I can make blogging my fulltime job... but nobody would pay me a friggin' cent for it. So learn german or use google translate *LOL* If you look into that blog frequently, you'll also be less worried about what's up with me while I am not making music but code.

Well, but now to the song I promised you. A while ago I announced a new themed musical project in which I want to produce music by and for meditation. I instantly released the first song for the project back then and a short while after, I released a suitable video for it. Here's the second song of the project with the very inventive title "Meditation Two". This time it is not just a bit more rythmically:

Meditation Two - STREAM
Meditation Two - DOWNLOAD (Richtclick and "Save as")

Saturday, January 23, 2010

"Reggae?" has been reviewed by Steve Gilmore!

Well, that was a surprise! When I looked in my E-Mail early this morning, I got to know that the Top Reviewer of SoundClick.com and great musician , Steve Gilmore, reviewed my latest Album "Reggae?" in his outstanding music review Blog... and WHAT a review it is! What to say? I am honored. To get a review from this man is a honor on its own. And if you get such a positive review, it is really something special. Just read it for yourself:

Review of "Reggae?" on RebelRiffs

Monday, January 11, 2010

Here we go again...

The new year started...well..."turbulent". There's nothing more that you, dear readers and listeners, have to know about this. At least I felt not very able to make music or let you know what was happening via this blog. First I have to apologize to those who tried to listen to music on alionsonny.com between Sunday 10:00pm and Monday (today) 6:pm. At the newer songs you most probably ended up on an errorpage. This was due to some problems at my former favourite reggaesite ReggaeDubwise. Because of the fact that streaming and downloading my songs from there is also not secured in the future, I decided to redirect all songlinks to the safe and reliable Archive.org. By now everything should work fine again.

What is Sonny doing right now? These days making music is not working so good, but I started programming again. The domain alionsolutions.de, which has been unused for ages will be the home of the fruits of my programming works in the future and everything will also being ready for download there. Amongst other ideas I am working at a interesting chat solution which will be implemented in Java. I also work at alionfractal 2.0 again, also using Java. Let's wait and see how performant a fractal generator written in Java is. Recently somebody told me, that the Java 6 plattform is oh so performant. We will find out soon if this is true.

Yepp, and thats it for a short status report. I am back at work!