New music video for a classic and more!

Yes, currently I really put the pedal to the metal to make all my old works available on YouTube. And since still images are rather boring, as announced, one or the other real music video is created. For example, for the title "Victory Dub" from the debut album "Reggae Xperimental WorX". Yepp, a really old track, which back in the days made the purists go berzerk and also still triggers the WTF? Effect for not just a few. Yes, quite unusual. As "Xperimental Reggae WorX" is none of the free downloadable albums, I've decided to give this track a real music video instead of a still picture of the cover art. I have been experimenting a lot lately with audio visualization and by a friend was made aware of the fact that I already own a great tool for this: With FL Studio ships a plugin with the strange name "ZGame Editor". Yes, some time ago I already came across this thing, have played around with it for a while but then forgot it pretty quickly. Why? It was buggy and that is actually an understatement. Let's rather say it was dysfunctional. Moreover, it swallowed such an amount of CPU time that you could actually only see jerky still pictures... until the thing either froze FL Studio or crashed it. So I was somewhat skeptical when my friend told me that he could well imagine, given my love for experimentation, I could get something good out of it. And indeed, although the ZGame editor is still anything but stable, not just sometimes surprises with difficult to understand behavior and is still quite resource hungry, you can actually work with it quite well. One just needs to save often and from time to think outside the box. With that in mind, it is a fantastic visualization tool with almost unlimited creative possibilities. Well, after all these words, here it is: My latest music video! Have fun!

And since, as I said, I want to get all the old chestnuts up on the alionmind Youtube channel as quickly as possible, I have also uploaded a still picture video for an absolutely dusted creation today. On that occasion, I also want to clarify something: One or the other asked me if it wouldn't be embarrassing for me to present my early works, which of course do not match my current quality standards. My answer is clearly NO! These are my beginnings. This is how everything started and I think not only I have a wide grin on my face when listening to those old tracks. I'm not ashamed that I had to learn a lot. Everybody who wants to get somewhere has to start at some time and also has to learn a lot. Also, there are not just a few, who remember the "good old days" (eg the original Versionist Reggae community) when listening to these old songs. Yeah, nostalgia. So, now that this is also clarified, have fun with a real beginner part of my works. If you want it, it is available on the, now free downloadable, Album "Excursions in Time & Space":

2 new video channels and more!

Not much is happening regarding to music recently here and I know that one or the other dislikes this a bit ;). But currently I want to try some stuff I always wanted to try. And since I test whether you really can make money with Youtube lately, currently just about anything circulates around Youtube and videos. But promised: New music will also be created again soon. Look at it this way: Right now I just have a little time off from being a musician. Constant change keeps the brain fit ;).

Sonny is gaming! My Let's Play Channel AlionLiveLP
You do not know what a Let's Play is? You can be helped. Just click here! I am with my 46 years certainly the oldest Let's Player of the multiverse and in the way I'm doing the whole probably also otherwise unique. Currently, there is just one video on my channel, but that will change very soon when I have time for an extensive gaming session. As the first game I have chosen the old classic "The Elder Scrolls III - Morrowind" extremely modded. Unfortunately, for the people who do not understand German, my first Let's Play is in German. Sorry, but my version of Morrowind is in German language. But I will for sure do some English Let's Plays also, because I also have some English games. In the future you will not read any further information about the Let's Play channel here, as it is part of the AlionLive project. It is therefore advisable to either subscribe to the AlionLive blog, like the AlionLive Facebook page or to subscribe to the Youtube channel if you want to stay up to date. Here is the first video. And I was indeed as nervous as it seems ;).

Life long learning ... and teaching! My Tutorial Channel "Multiversity of Alion"
I was asked several times if I could make a video tutorial about this or that. Mostly, these questions based on my activities in the area of ​​3D graphics in Blender or making music in FL Studio. And so it is not surprising that the currently only video on the new channel is a Blender tutorial. A fairly modest one, but it is also only the introductory part of a series on audio visualization using Blender. More coming soon. And it will not only be Blender tutorials: I will also make tutorials about making music in FL Studio, Web design, programming in various programming languages ​​etc. My repertoire is quite extensive ;). However, news concerning the tutorial channel will be posted for the time being here, because I do not have plans for an independent "web identity" for this project yet. Certainly one day there will be a separate blog and a Facebook page, but currently I have simply no time for that. Have fun with my first tutorial. Nervous? Never! ;)

The alionmind records video channel
This one (LINK) I introduced already in the last two blog entries in detail. However, also a lot has happened here. 22 pieces of music are now already available and there will be more. Today I have just uploaded an old classic from 2006, which is also on the free album "The Alion Archives". You find more information about the track in the video description on Youtube.

So, that's it so far. Stay tuned, because it will always get more interesting ;)

The end of the alionsonny music video channel!

Now you have to be very brave: The alionsonny music video channel with the old SD videos will cease to exist. It was somewhat hard for me to kill this legendary institution. Thank you for 7614 views and the 26 subscribers for almost 7 years of loyalty. Why is that now? The reason is a very good one, and I am sure you will like it: There is a brand new alionmind records Youtube channel, on which you will from now on find the music videos of the projects alionsonny, Cimelium and Willma Poppen. This is mainly because of "organization reasons". On this channel you will be able to watch all the old videos in one place. But the best is yet to come: I'll try to upload videos for all released tracks of the 3 projects. Is this guy now completely insane? To create elaborate videos for the whole repertoire is a work that takes forever! Yes, absolutely right! And that's why there will not be elaborate videos for all the tracks. Most so-called music videos on Youtube are on the  ​​visual side just still images and no one seems to care about that much. For the very old tracks, especially those on the free albums, I'll do exactly that. For the newer ones, I will decide depending on the case, whether I will create a simple visualization or an elaborate video.

So, these are the news. Please don't forget to subscribe to the new alionmind  records channel, so you are always not up to date. This is especially true for those who had already subscribed to the old channel. See you on Youtube!

Out of synch...

I don't know how many of you noticed it, but recently my homepage alionsonny.com is out of synch with this blog. Usually (until the beginning of the year), news which were posted here appeared almost immediately on alionsonny.com, at least to some extent. Also, new videos, music etc. could be found on the homepage with a bit of delay. The reason for this more or less long period of non-synchronicity is now also responsible for the fact that alionsonny.com is "frozen" since January 8th.

Why is it? For this I need to get a little bit into the "technical" details. alionsonny.com runs not on one of those well-known content management systems, which are quite popular amongst those who either have no time or desire to create their own website. And there is nothing to say against that. "Then why are you doing all the work yourself?" An answer to this can be still read in VERY old posts on this blog. I have used such a system for quite a time, namely the well known and very popular Joomla. At this time the website has been hacked so many times that it really was not funny anymore.  "And your great system is unhackable?". No, most probably not. Nothing is unhackable. But the well known CMSs all have one thing in common: They are very well known ;). A hacker or a so-called hacker crew usually has no desire to deal with a self-made CMS and puzzle out possible vulnerabilities if a so-called exploit for a known CMS allows the hacking of thousands of websites. This is exactly the same as with the viruses and trojans, which exist mainly for the most widely used operating system in the world. Monocultures are vulnerable. But please: Refrain from any OS flamewar here ;). And the other reason for my homemade CMS is that it's fun.

Ok, and the current version of my homepage has been hastily stitched together in spring 2013. It should work and be just finished. Here I have put the main focus on that the site visitors can visit my website and I have not only somewhat neglected myself, the guy who has to file in all the data. This caused the fact, that the procedure of filing in news, music and videos was quite complicated. I spare you the unnecessary details ;).

Earlier this year, this really got on my nerves and I decided to no longer update the homepage for a time and instead to build a convenient so-called admin backend, which makes the whole process a lot easier for me. And that's what I'm doing currently. If you see this text on my home page, at least the updating of plain text news is already done. The filing in of new videos and music will be the next step. So have some patience and maybe subscribe to the RSS feed of this blog. A simple bookmark is of course also a solution. Soon everything will be up again and a fix for some already reported "imperfections" is already on it's way.

The alionsonny project is ALIVE! New Song!

This took some time! The fans of elaborate Dub crazyness had to wait whole 5 months (to the day) for a new release by the alionsonny project. While all my other projects were plentyfully blessed with new releases, the reggae-ish part was completely on halt. This is now changing. ACTUALLY there has been an alionsonny album announced for the turn of the year. In the course of my "2013 - My Year" move it is now time to focus on that task.

The start for this has been made with the release of a new alionsonny track, titled "A Sunny Day". As the name tells, this track was inspired by a sunny day, the first one in Hamburg this year. Like the projects "Willma Poppen" and "Cimelium", the project alionsonny has now also a "roadmap" for a change, which will determine the style of all future releases of the project. At the alionsonny project this change is mainly to focus on the specialities of the typical alionsonny sound. To say it somewhat clear: I dont want to get distracted anmore. I found my sound an now it is time to finetune it. With the new release I think I accomplished that so far.

On one hand "A Sunny Day" is a return to the roots of the project, but also a step into a uncertain future. Many loyal alionsonny listeners bemoaned, that they missed those playfull and sometimes neckbreaking outbursts of Dub in the releases of the past years. "A Sunny Day" answers this with a straight "Here you go! Want more?". On the other hand, the regular alionsonny listener will recognize, that the sound is now much more structured and clean. I can hear the friends of the "old soundmud" scream in pain. Yes, folks who love merciless reverb mud and delay mangled drumloops exist. Well, dear "friends of the mud", that's it. Honestly, when I recorded my first works in 2004/2005 with 30 Euros PC speakers, I released (because those speakers didn't speak BASS) tracks, which make my toenails roll up, if I listen to them today. If one takes a look at the frequency spectrum, one sees the bass frequencies exploding and on the other frequencies is the silence of the lambs. Why do I tell this now? Exactly as I said goodbye to the "monsterbass" in 2007 and even more in 2009, I now say goodbye to the other elements which negatively affected my sound in the past. There were also folks who bemoaned the "monsterbass" when I said goodbye to it. Well, the train goes on.

The style of the alionsonny project is also changing. While I often released tracks and albums in the past like "I don't care what you want! Take this!", I decided - also in the course of the commercialization of the project - to listen more to you, my dear listeners. Actually there is a great deal of feedback comming from my audience, and so I can be pretty sure to know exactly WHAT my audience liked at my past releases. THIS is my roadmap: Excactly what you want. So flood my mailbox and the alionsonny Facebook fanpage with CONSTRUCTIVE comments. Only this way I can produce YOUR music.

A little sidenote/detail. While working at the song, I recognized a pattern in a particular melody when looking at it in the pianoroll (digital music sheet in a sequencer), which looked like DNA. I embed a picture here:

For the curious amongst you: The melody is that synth which sounds like a mix of a female voice and a flute. The "enemies of repetition" will recognize that it repeats the same melody pattern allmost all over the song. This is intended. I didn't want to break the DNA string ;).

Another good news: Since quite a long time no alionsonny music video has been releaased. AlionLive isn't really about music videos ;). Because I like "A Sunny Day" so much, I will soon create a NICE music video for it. And if I say soon, I mean REALLY soon. Ok, and that's really enough text. Here's the music.

Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new!

Now it is finally done. The new website is here; not 100% perfect, but quite ok. Some folks allready gave me feedback and of cause the reactions on the new site differ. Of cause, the site has been shrunken down. In the process of "professionalizing" of my work, I prefer easy understandable structures. The old alionsonny.com simply contained too much not really neccessary information. Just an example: Who is interested in an endless list of song titles and the corresponding exact dates of release? Ok I am, but I do not really think you are. Another example? How are fractal images and Raytracing experiments exactly connected to the musicproject alionsonny? Right: In no way!

What I simply recognized throughout the whole process of transformation from a "everything for free fun project" to a professional music project was, that my website was allways a mix between a private homepage and a professional musicians homepage. I tried my best to eliminate the first part now. If I have the time someday to run a private funhomepage again, I have the domain wolther.de for that ;). And even if some folks are complaining now about "losing the cool & easy private touch of the site" and missing (I think unneccessary) information, I think the new site is much cleaner and structured and more suiting it's actual purpose. So stop whining. To say it with the Bible: "old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new", and it is great that way!

The site is far from being perfect. The layout sometimes freaks, especially on some Browsers. The more investigative guys amongst you will also have recognized, that not all possibilities to provoke errors on the site lead to a corresponding error message. But in general the site is safe, otherwise the few hours would have been enough time for my "russian hacker friends" to turn the site into a Viagra selling page. They are quite quick at this and they seem to love to try hacking my website.

The functionality of the site has been now reduced to the absolute minimum, to get the site online very quick. If you are missing one or the other thing, you will most probably find it back in a improved version during the next weeks. So please refrain from AT THIS TIME sending me loads of reports about missing stuff. Most probably I am allready at the job to bring it back. I plan a gigantic improvement regarding to the interactivity of the site. You will get a newsletter again and also a personal section called "MyAlionmind" or so, which will be, for example, very helpfull during sweepstakes etc.

Ok, so far the news. Have fun on the new alionsonny.com. I will now create a new alionsonny track. About time ;)

AlionLive Return 2 Madeira - Day 3 - Levadawalk Portela -> Ribeiro Frio

Once again it is done. A huge chunk of video material was viewed, all too embarassing stuff was cut out, everything subtitled and welded together carefully. The result is the latest part of "AlionLive Return 2 Madeira", your healthy family entertainment series.

This part is about the third day of the travel and brings us, after the initial "me talking into the camera" and a busride to Ribeiro Frio. NO, dear busride video haters: No fear. I didn't film the whole busride, because I was kept from it by a rude person taking the front seat and a thick chunk of fog hanging on the mountain tops.

In Ribeiro Frio we make our way along a beautiful Levada to Portela. On the way we see spectacular waterfalls, rocks, trees, unbelievable shaky camera images and me.... because of my lousy camera with thousand and one facial colors.

The music is composed out of old and new tracks. The newest are "Apocalypso 2012" by Willma Poppen and "Ribeiro Frio" and "Nossa Senhora do Monte" from the upcomming Cimelium album "Madeira".

The video has a runtime of 39 minutes. So get something to eat and drink. Why not longer? Simple answer: Like very often during that trip it was raining so often and so heavy, that I seldomly found a time when I could film without risking the life of my camera. Still there's enough to see. Have fun!

What's goin' on?

Well, everthing which is not going off ;) Dunno if that "joke" makes sense in English language in German it does ;) So, there were no news posted on this Blog for quite a time. And because most of you do not read my news on Facebook, Twitter etc., it is most likely, that by now some of you ask themselves if everything is going smooth here at the alions den. Well, it does. Since my last post indeed some stuff happened. Not as much as I would have liked and some stuff happened not the way it was supposed to. Well, here's the story. I try to keep it short...

On New Years Eve a wonderfull friend (and even bigger Willma Poppen Fan) remembered, that she did not give any gifts for Christmas to me this year. You know: I do not give much attention to all that gifting stuff, even tho I like to receive gifts. But gifts aren't a must here. Well and that amazing lady has also a very amazing memory. And so she remembered that recently I answered her question about what I still want for my computer with "SSD and 8 GB of RAM to upgrade it to 16 GB". And so she dragged me to my trusted hardwaredealer and we bought the components. Now the experienced PC builder asks himself what troubles may lay ahead when installing those components... and the PC builder, experienced in trouble knows: "A lot!". And so it happened: After installing the components, my former system disk (which was to be replaced by the SSD) was no longer recognized by the system. This caused a little loss of data, which... well .. complicated some stuff. A rather lengthy data recovery process and some secondary problems with the new system also stole some time from me. Well, so far the decription of that little desaster, which caused quite a slowing down of my work at the start of the year. And still I got some stuff done, of which I simply forgot to report some here in this blog also:

1. Most of you will surely be happy about the fact, that the introduction part of "AlionLive Return 2 Madeira" is finally finnished and online. Ok, it is just an introduction, which consists of 99% me talking into the camera, but a start has been made. Now the rest will go rather smooth. There was not much of an opportunity during the hollidays and new year to turn my small flat into a videostudio and this, amongst a few other things, kept me from getting further with this. For the upcomming parts of ALR2M I must ask for your patience again, because the ammount of raw video material is gigantic and I will put more effort this time in the cutting and postproduction. But here's the introduction part for now. Have fun!


2. The "ghostproject", how friends call it, also did a big step forward. Which "ghostproject"? Well, TUBENWURST of cause! That project, which is, so to say, the sequel of the album "Electronic Spacerock" released it's third track so far. And this one is dedicated to a very special person I met on my next-to-last day in Madeira. And because of that the track is named after that person "Beatrice". Want to hear it? Of cause...


3. Around Christmas the first track of Willma Poppen after the release of the Album "Heroes of the Popp-Culture" was released. So, this is the first track for an upcomming second album by Willma Poppen. You can read more about that in the official Willma Poppen Blog. Wanna hear the track? Here it is:


4. Around New Years Eve I startet a sweepstakes, where you can win one of five free downloads of the Album "Heroes of the Popp-Culture" by Willma Poppen. Due to the IT-desaster described above, the promotion of that event was nearly completely trashed. Because of that, i decided to delay the drawing of the winners to the 30th of January. So you still have the chance to participate. Read the details in the official Willma Poppen Blog.

5. And what about the relaunch of all alionmind websites? Simple answer: Currently nothing! Due to the IT-desaster described above that got...complicated. Once everything is again up and running here, I'll work at it with full force.

So, what did I forget? Of cause something. Once I remember everything I forgot to write here, there will be an update. Until then: Be well and heads up, this winter will also be over one day ;)

State of emergency is starting today!

Yes, today I will get my lazy ass up and give all my project sites (alionsonny.com, alionsonny.de and everything under alionmind.com) a hefty update. It is time to wipe away all the amateurish away. Too much is still reminding of the hobbyist times when I gave away everything for free and to change the overall design of the websites to something more professional.

This will, most probably, become a tough ride for you as the website users. I cannot imagine the whole process to be free of any accidents. So stay tuned and excuse the one or the other "side-effect" of me working on the sites. If the homepage is not available, you will still get news via Facebook and Twitter. If something should not work for a longer time, and you think I forgot to fix something, don't hesitate to contact me via mail. E-Mail will allways work ;)

What to expect? My main goal now is to make it easier and more accessible to buy albums, to be able to listen to music and get the latest news without being distracting by unneccessary stuff.The websites and also the blogs will get a more uniform and pleasant look & feel and I want to create more possibilities of interaction between you and me. I will ask you about your opinion about some of my ideas during the time I am working at the whole thing. For examle somebody had the idea of an alionmind records forum. What do you think about that? Would you participate actively in such a forum?`Well, personally I think, that this all works with the Facebook Fansites allready.

Well, I will now start to work. So during the next hours, it is more than just possible, that instead of the websites, you will see a boring "under construction" message. I will keep you updated.

Win a download of Cimelium's album "Mesopotamia" & more!

It is time again to let you know what is happening here currently. A great occasion for that is the fact, that the music project Cimelium is giving away 5 free downloads of the album "Mesopotamia". That's something for those who have allways no money, eh? All details about your chance to win one of those free downloads, you can read at the official Cimelium Blog. You can take part in this until 23rd of December.

For all those who are waiting for "AlionLive Return 2 Madeira": Patience! I have a little creative mess regarding to the 3D intro and a small but powerfull sickness kept me from filming the introduction. But however: AlionLive Return 2 Madeira will start before christmas.

I work at new music at various fronts. The next you will most probably get, is a new song of the project "Tubenwurst", which did not really release much since it was declared to be the stylewise heir of alionsonny's "Electronic Spacerock". I have a track for that project allmost ready, which perfectly fits into the concept of electronic rock, synthpop and 80s music, which is actually the main genre direction of Tubenwurst. For Cimelium, I work at songs for the second themed album, titled "Madeira". I allready did some quite good work for that during the past days. And REALLY great progress can be reported from the progress of new works for the Willma Poppen project. Some people allready warn, that it may be confusing for the audience, if Willma Poppen releases a second album in 2012 ;) You see: Some great stuff is happening!

I also decided to give the websites of the alionmind records empire a new kick into a new direction. "Inspired" by a recent hacker attack on all of my websites, I found out, that some of the internals of the core content management system must be cleaned up. Also the overall handling and design of, especially, alionsonny.com is not just a bit dusted. It still breathes a touch of the old "I give everything away for free" era. That must be changed ;)

Ok, so far for the news and don't forget to participate in the Cimelium sweepstakes!

The eternal Youtube Game - Stupid Copyright Claims

Time for a little rant again, because there's something which really gets on my nerves. Of cause you remember my AlionLive video about the biketrip to the Baltic Sea, right? And for sure you also remember a posting I wrote on this Blog, about that some people claimed, that the soundtrack, from my Pop-Techno project "Willma Poppen" was their intellectual property. Well, after a short time the claim was withdrawn and everything seemed to be allright.

Well, until I decided to monetarize my videos, which means, to put advertisings in them. When I did that, instantly a new copyright claim was made. "Times Music India" and again "One or more music publishing rights collecting societies" claimed, that there was a musical composition titled "Shakti" in my video. So I rejected that copyright claim again, by "disputing it"... as Youtube calls that process. Nothing happened. While the first copyright claim had been withdrawn in just a few hours, now nothing happened at all. In the video manager, beside the stupid copyright claim, there was a text which said, that "an answer is expected until November 6th 2012". And exactly on that date the copyright claim was withdrawn.

The monetarizing for the video was still inactive. So I clicked the "monetarize"-link again. And guess what happened... I got a message that this time even 3 parties were claiming a copyright on music in my video. This time it should have been a musical composition titled "Pearl's Girl". Meanwhile I found out that it is a song by the band "Underworld". I listened to that song on (now that's funny) Youtube, and could not hear any similarities to ANY song of the Willma Poppen project. The funniest thing about that is, that I found all existing versions of "Underworlds" song "Pearl's Girl" on Youtube on Accounts of which I am sure that they do not have any rights on the song. So, Youtube: Why do you not wipe that crap away in the first place before accusing honest musicians to use copyrighted music?

One more and maybe the most interesting fact is, that each and every song used in the "Biketrip to the Baltic Sea" video is used in at least one more video on my AlionLive channel and for none of those other videos a copyright claim has ever been made. A special thing here is the AlionLive Madeira part about a busride from Funchal to Curral das Freiras. It hads allmost exactly the same set of songs by Willma Poppen in it's soundtrack as the "Biketrip to the Baltic Sea" video. This video is monetarized and NEVER has a copyright claim been made by anybody.

So why is it all just happening with the "Biketrip to the Baltic Sea" video? In discussions at forums etc. about that topic some selfmade "professionals" talked about a magic tool by Youtube (Google) which magically scans videos for copyrighted content. Somehow this is impossible, because then that scanner would have found foreign content in the AlionLive Madeira video mentioned above also. Because that didn't happen, the idea regarding the badly calibrated contentscanner seems not to work. Additionally, I listened to each and every song mentioned in the copyright claims and even checked the digital waveform. There is not the slightest similarity between any of them and ANY of the Willma Poppen works.

The answer to the question why all this happens, seems to be connected to the number of views a video has. The "Biketrip to the Baltic Sea" video is the secondmost viewed video on my AlionLive channel and looking at the statistics it has the biggest potential. I don't now which objectives are the reason to deprive me of my ad revenues as long as possible, but this is for sure no propper business behaviour. I would have loved to talk about that issue to any "Youtube Support" but such a support does in fact not exist. What a absolutely unprofessional business is Youtube, that all the times new copyright claims can be made against a business partner, who repeatedly said, that he just uses his own works for his videos. I am able to bring each and every evidence that this is true. I am the only person in the universe who has the original raw material and project files for each and every bit of media which is used for the videos I upload on Youtube. It would be fine if one was able to sue the shit out of those people who allways claim that my works are theirs. But because the process regarding the copyright claims is totally intransparent, one is not even able to contact those idiots who claim copyrights on my genuine works, and ask them, for example, who crapped that giant turd into their so called brains, that they see a similarity between ANY work of the Willma Poppen project and, for example, "Pearls Girl" by "Underworld". By the way: I feel not honored by that comparison at all.

So, one can only hope, that there will be a better, more professional video upload service one day, which values it's creative users a bit more. Nuff said!

So here are again the copyright claims so far... for your amusement:

• "Victorious", musical composition
• Copyright claimed by: One or more music publishing rights collecting societies
• Note: Initially there was a copyright claim here too by the company Rumblefish, which became world famous for claiming a copyright on bird tweeting. Funny, that this claim has totally vanished ;)

• "Go Getter (David Wiegand Alternate Mix)", musical composition
• Copyright claimed by: One or more music publishing rights collecting societies
• CD Baby              

• "Shanti (Instrumental)", musical composition
• Copyright claimed by: Times Music India
• One or more music publishing rights collecting societies           

• "PEARL'S GIRL", musical composition
• Copyright claimed by: The Harry Fox Agency, Inc. (HFA)
• One or more music publishing rights collecting societies
• UMPG Publishing

Back from Madeira, and now?

Yes, dear friends, I am since 2 days back from Madeira. And with me I brough 16 1/2 hours of raw video material. So, there will be a lot for you to watch on AlionLive soon. If you are on Facebook and are my Facebook friend, you can now watch a quite huge number of nice photos from Madeira there. Of cause I will upload the photos on Google+ too sometimes, but not now.

It will take some time until you can view the video, because i want to create a brandnew intro for "AlionLive Return 2 Madeira" and some new fresh music would also be good. Well... you know that ;) I have some new plans regarding to music. The new alionsonny album, I announced for until the end of this year will for sure be released and all the other allready announced things will happen too.

To talk about the new ideas for projects I had in Madeira, there will be a second album of the "Cimelium" project. Again it will be a concept album, this time titled "Madeira". It will have the traditional number of 13 tracks and each of them will be titled after a particular place in Madeira and I'll try to capture the atmosphere / ambient of that place in the song. The music will again be very relaxing and calm, but it will not contain the oriental sounds you know from the "Mesopotamia" album. I plan to release this album at latest in summer 2013.

I also work at new songs for a second album of the Willma Poppen project. After the initial approach of the project failed, because of my inability to produce stupid simple pop-techno in a music industry style, I will take the project on a path of ambitious, sophisticated pop-techno meeting my artistical ambitions. To plan a release date for that album would be, keeping all the stuff on my agenda in mind, not just a bit shady.

And then I have some stuff on my mind, I don't want to tell you about yet, because it is supposed to be a surprise for you. TIPP: When the "AlionLive Return 2 Madeira" videos are being released, watch each of them. I sing a particular song in there... ;)

By the way: A short remark on the Cimelium album "Mesopotamia" and the Willma Poppen album "Heroes of the Popp-Culture". I thought that my distributor Routenote would manage it to get both albums out on iTunes, Amazon and eMusic until I return from Madeira. As you can see if you check it, this is not the case. Believe me: I am for sure AT LEAST as unpleased as you about that. I will have to speak some serious words with Mr. Bennett tomorrow. This doesn't work at all that way!

Ok, and now I go back to work to bring you some firstclass entertainment. The show must go on!

"Mesopotamia" by Cimelium is now available on Routenote for just 8,45$!

Yeah, that went quick. Thanks to James Bennett at Routenote and a big apology by me, because the problem with the album was indeed MY FAULT. I didn't simply understand the difference between 1415 and 1425 pixels. I think I never felt that stupid in my whole life. ok, but now everything is great and James even was so kind to approve the album immediately. So i am happy as a man can be. So, if you want the album right now and have no problems paying in US$, THIS IS WHERE TO CLICK to get to the albums page in my Routenote Shop. If you did not pre-listen the whole album by now, you can do it there aswell as on the Cimelium Soundcloud page. Have fun, folks!

Ahh, by the way: If you want to listen to most of the tracks of the album and watch wonderful impressions from my favorite place on earth (Madeira), there are 4 parts of my video series AlionLive Madeira available to do so. Here they are:

The album "Mesopotamia" of the Cimelium project is READY!

Yes, it is done! Yesterday I finnished the last track, titled "Dagon", of the Cimelium album "Mesopotamia". But, once again, I have some problems with the distribution service Routenote. When I tried to upload the album yesterday, the uploader refused to accept the coverart, though it was of the correct dimensions and in the propper fileformat. This means that everything stuck at the first step of the upload process. Well, no idea what is wrong again. So it will take some time until the album will be available at the Routenote shop and even more time until it will be available on iTunes and Amazon.

Well, you know that all from the release of the Willma Poppen album allready. Now, there's just a rather inconvinient way to get the album for those of you, who want the album right now. Here is how it works:

1. The price for the album is 9,90 Euro or US$
2. Send me that ammount of cash either to my Paypal (alionsonny@alionsonny.com) or send me a mail to the same address if you do not like Paypal for any reason. I will then provide you with banking details for a bank transfer.
3. If you payed via Paypal, please send me an additional mail with an e-mailaddress, to which I can send the album.
4. Once I receive your payment, I will send you the album in an archive via mail.
5. IMPORTANT: Please make sure, that your mailaccount allows attackments up to 150 MB!
6. If you are, for any reason, unable to receive the album via e-mail, please provide me with a postal address, so I can send you the album via postal mail

Again, I'm very sorry for the inconvinience. It is not really my fault. Once I earn enough cash by selling albums, I will for sure use another distribution service. For those of you, who did not pre-listen the complete album by now, here's a player where you can do so:



If you just do not know the latest track "Dagon", here it is:

Next-to-last track for the Cimelium album, "Enlil", has been released!

Ok, folks: I wrote all the stuff for the Cimelium blog allready, but most of you seem not to be able to visit this official Cimelium Blog ;). This is why I still have to announce news about the Cimelium project here also. But since I have loads of stuff to do and am too lazy to write a new blog entry for this blog, I simply copy & paste the Cimelium blog entry here:
With giant steps I head towards the release of the "Mesopotamia" album. Only one more track and we are ready to go. The track "Enlil", which I uploaded yesterday allready and just somehow forgot to promote at the blogs, is again somewhat different than the other tracks. It is, what i call a "free floater", which means, that there's no prominent and particular melody line or alike, but just a floating carpet of sound. It mainly consists only of a pad-synth which I sampled and then mangled thru a sequence of effects units which are constantly automated to achieve an evolving soundscape. Still I added some string-instrument arpeggio and some majestic brass-thingies to enhance the listening experience. Well, again i hope you enjoy what you hear and I'll do my best to finnish that remaining song for the album this weekend so the album can be released next week.

News from the project Cimelium: Tiamat!

And finally here is a new song from the project Cimelium. You remember it, right? Well the most recent song destined for that album was released more than 4 months ago. The Willma Poppen album really halted all work at this album.

Und this now is one of the last missing 3 songs for the album "Mesopotamia". Because I want finnish that album this month and there are barely 2 weeks of the month left, I have to do one song each week. This really SHOULD be possible.

This current work is quite different from all the other songs on the album. To describe why is somewhat difficult. best is you take a listen yourself and I hope you like it.

The Album "Heroes of the Popp-Culture" now for 8,45$ at Routenote!

Some allready asked, when the first Willma Poppen album will be finally available for download online. In fact some time has passed since the release of the album has been announced. The reason for this is, that, to put it politely, the Routenote website is not really perfect. Something really went wrong, so the release was not just a bit delayed. But with the great help of Routenote's James Bennett we got the album at least into the Routenote shop now. The release at iTunes, Amazon, Spotify etc. now will take another 2 to 6 weeks. then you will be able to buy it using your native language, pay in Euros or whatever your countries currency is, or you can simply stream it using Spotify. Until then: If you want to get the album quick and in a not too complicated way, click here to buy it at the Routenote shop. Hint: If you want to do me a special favor: If you buy the album at Routenote, I keep 100% of the cash. If you buy it somwewhere else, I get less money.

AlionLive Madeira continues - Busride to the wild heart of Madeira!

Yeah, again it took a while and some folks were getting on my nerves allready. When does the last one get the fact, that pressure makes me doing the complete opposite of what those folks intend to achieve? ;)

But in fact there were reasons why it all took so long. The first reason is, that because of the rather lousy summer, my annual fall-/winterdepression kicked in a bit earlier this year and gave me a nice creative block. Additionally I wanted to create at least one brandnew song for that video once again, which was not so easy to, because of reason 1. But, and now hold your breath, there's not just one brandnew song in this video, but FOUR! This is because I worked with full force at the first album of the Willma Poppen project. And exactly this is the reason why the complete soundtrack for this video is from the just released album "Heroes of the Popp-Culture" by Willma Poppen.

The video is again a part with 2 sub-parts... complicated? You allready know that. There is a part 11A and there will be a part 11B. I do this, because this part 11A is about a busride to the wild heart of Madeira to get us to the starting location of a hike. And the hike then will be the topic of part 11B. I just find it nicer to keep that in different videos. Besides the rather "aesthetic" reasons for doing this, there's also technical reasons, but i do not want to bore you with that stuff ;) Well, actually everything is said now. Have fun with the video!

The first Willma Poppen album is OUT NOW!

Yess, you can order the album right now, BUT... there are some difficulties... unfortunately... Ok, as you may know I distribute music via the retailer Routenote and it seems, that it will take some time until the album is on my Routenote shop and then it will take another 2 to 6 weeks until it is available on iTunes, Amazon etc. I do not want to bore you with the details...

But I really want you to be able to get the album right now, especially because some of you have been waiting such a looong time for it. So the only way for you to get the album is to order it from me directly. To keep it all short & crisp, here's what to do:

1. The price of the album is 9,99 € or 11,99 US$.
2. Send that ammount of money either to my Paypal account (alionsonny@alionsonny.com) or write an E-Mail to alionsonny@alionsonny.com and I will send you the banking details for bank transfer.
3. Once you have sent the money, please write me a mail with your name, your E-Mail address and method of payment.
4. Once I received your payment, I will send a RAR-archive containing the album to the E-Mail address you provided. If this doesn't work for you, I will provide you with a download link where you can download the album.

What you get is all 13 tracks of the album in pristine 320 kbps MP3 quality plus the front cover graphics in high resolution. Talking about quality: This is NOT the bad quality you can listen to at Soundcloud or in the AlionLive videos. Soundcloud as well as Youtube heavily compresses the audio and I am allways disappointed when I upload either a track to Soundcloud or video to Youtube how bad it sounds there. So if you buy the album, you will be able to listen to Willma Poppen in a quality you have never heared before.

If you have ANY questions about the ordering process described above, if you prefer a different way of payment or of receiving the album or a different audio format, please feel free to send an E-Mail to alionsonny@alionsonny.com and I will do my best to help you.

Sorry for the inconvinience
alionsonny, Mastermind of the Willma Poppen Project

Done! The last track for the Willma Poppen album is HERE!

Yeah, we've been quite busy, yes?  During one month we released 4 tracks! I think this deserves some praise, eh? And if this wasn't enough: We released a total of 8 tracks this year. I nearly cannot believe it myself, if i think about the fact, that in the 3 years before we barely managed to release about 4 tracks. Well, now it is done and we are allmost ready to release that long awaited album.

What is keeping us from releasing it just NOW? Well, principles of me, Sonny von Alion, grandmaster of the Willma Poppen Illuminati lodge. I noticed some, not just little, oddities in the mix of 3 of the total of 13 magical tracks destined for the album. All those of you who listened to all 13 tracks not just one time, will know which tracks i am talking about. I will take a CLOSE look on the original project data of those tracks and see what i can do. And THEN when everything sounds like I want it, THEN the album will be thrown at the hungry audience. DEUS VULT!

And now, without any more words, here is THE HOLY ARPEGGIATUS!