Ian Ion - Gringo Locomotion - Chill Tribe Records 2007
mattman
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Posted : Dec 21, 2007 00:29
Read the digipak sleeve, and you’ll see this album has an interesting concept! We all know Ian Johansson from Koxbox and Saiko-pod, but music under his alias Ian Ion is new to me. A debut such as this, with an IDM / Ambient release is impressive. There is much about this album that reminds me of other artists. Elemental Journey (Matt Coldrick and Matt Hillier) is a name that pops up, and of course, there is a level of familiarity with previous work of Ian. The 12 tracks are quite diverse in terms of feel and sound. There’s a good balance between having to be relaxed listening to this and how much it relaxes you - and I also get the feeling that the album is doing a great job of surpassing the casualness and “let’s be experimental just to be experimental” feel that other IDM musicians might have a tendency to express. No, this album follows the exact same quality of production as other Chill Tribe Records releases have – and that’s impressive to say the least. The album is roughly divided into three parts, and everything is mixed in a way that gives great fluency. Vocals, live instruments and synthesizers are all working together, and with good headphones or a decent sound system, you’ll hear the impressive amount of work put into the effects of stereo sound. Most of the soundcapes are in the higher level of frequencies, and the level of detail is remarkable. This really is IDM on a very high level, and you won’t have to run through the album many times to understand the structure and sense of direction it offers. The middle part of the album is full of ear-candy. Really, sit down and concentrate on what you’re listening to, and you’ll realize the talent presented in the build of effects and layers of sound. “We Could Be Housewives” is an excellent example of this… I’ve never been a big fan of this kind of music other than ‘the greats’ within IDM, and this album is definitively one of those that jumped out at me to shake my frame of mind regarding my personal preferences. Stick this record under the Christmas tree and watch the holiday stress fade away in the blink of an eye. Interestingly, the last third of this album offers something completely different. Sunshy’s crisp guitar play, with a touch of Röyksopp, a voice message and a Casio-watch beep are all in store to change the mood to something else. And, for my part, the last track - To My Future Past - is what pushes this album from great to excellent. This is absolutely blissful music. By then you’ve stopped thinking about “is this ambient or IDM?” your head is soothed and you’re anticipating what this last, long track has to offer. It’s like a big cookie at the end, in contrast to the shorter (and at times very short) tracks in the previous two thirds. The lower parts of the levels of frequencies kick in, mid-base and even lower base. Ah, you simply don’t want this to end! I love this part of ambient music when you’re able to turn the sound up at very high levels without having to regret it when your brain starts to pulsate painfully… Instead, you’re enhancing the detail and the structure of the tracks that lifts the atmosphere greatly. This has definitively a Scandinavian sound to it; Biosphere is another name you’ll be thinking about throughout this hour. I can’t do much else than to tell you that this is some of the most impressive beat-less music in my collection, and any lover of IDM and Ambient should not be without it.
Goa Goa-trance & Psytrance parties in Oslo, Norway:
PKS
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Jan 7, 2008 15:36
Here is a video:
Enjoy!
CHILL TRIBE
CTRCD01 QUALITY RELAXATION
CTRCD02 RELAXED JOURNEYS
CTRCD03 EAR PLEASURE
CTRCD04 WOMBATMUSIC - Shameful Silence
CTRCD05 POLYPLOID - Grow Your Own
CTRCD06 IAN ION - Gringo Locomotion
CTRCD07 SUNKINGS - Before We Die
geometrical trip
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Posted : Jan 8, 2008 01:09
Really nice ambient sound.
True journey around mysterious worlds.
Boom!
PKS
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Jan 23, 2008 13:45
Enjoy!
CHILL TRIBE
CTRCD01 QUALITY RELAXATION
CTRCD02 RELAXED JOURNEYS
CTRCD03 EAR PLEASURE
CTRCD04 WOMBATMUSIC - Shameful Silence
CTRCD05 POLYPLOID - Grow Your Own
CTRCD06 IAN ION - Gringo Locomotion
CTRCD07 SUNKINGS - Before We Die
Le Lotus Bleu
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Feb 2, 2008 19:07
Ian Ion – Gringolocomotion (ChillTribe) 2008
Tracklisting:
1 Noises Of Us (2:50)
2 Slappna Av (8:17)
3 Postcards Are People (5:08)
4 Monica's Hunger (3:36)
5 Tablatronix (1:47)
6 Scarborough Unfair (5:07)
Vocals - Aviaja Lumholdt
7 Ziggurat (6:04)
8 We Could Be Housewives (2:22)
9 Dim Summing (2:44)
10 Coon Calling (0:30)
11 Sunshy (4:15)
Guitar - Yadunandana Das
12 To My Future Past (18:31)
Artwork By [Design] - Felix Stöver , Ian Ion
Written-By, Producer, Mastered By - Ian Ion , a danish artist who is a pioneer in electronic music (20 years in the industry), he's or has been involved in bands such as The Overlords, KoxBox & Saiko-Pod for the more famous.
This album is differently conceived from the classic chill albums, as a result my perception can't be focused on the 12 tracks cut but on the global content. Actually, listening to Gringolocomotion is like listening to an hour chill mix for me, that's why i consider the whole.
One of the main characteristic of this project is the continuity, the linearity of the production. I mean by this, a fully catchy masterpiece from scratch to to bottom. It's a very possessive production which takes you & makes you loose your sense, bewildered, you won't really take care to the elements. Although there's this special cold atmosphere floating all along, cold but blissful or intimate nearly selfish packed with an old school flavour (could remind you some techno-ambient productions from the early to the mid 90's) through the bank tones
Belwildered because all is calm, sweet, slow but times flies swiftly while the listen.
Sometimes you don't find many words coz you prefer turning back to listening, that's what i'm doing here with Ian Ion – Gringolocomotion & i invite you to do the same asap.
Ian Ion - Gringo Locomotion
STYLE Eclectic ambient and chillout mix. Gringo Locomotion explores a number of low key musical genres from some floatational beatlessness through, minimal chill and soundscaping into acoustic guitar melody and space age folk adaptation. There are tracks of an environmental nature that feature smooth synthetic washes and soft drones with marginal atmospherics and semi-percussive detail, actual field recordings from Tokyo sidestreets and an Australian rainforest adding further depth. Freeform in nature, some arrangements meander from one state into another - the changes subtle and natural - moving in and out of light, harmony rising and falling away into amorphous abstraction. A spaced out contemporary rendition of Scarborough Fair features the soft, breathy voice of half-Inuit singer Aviaja Lumholdt, lazily wafting across a rippling electronic sound canvas. The tracks here all run from one into another creating an unbroken listening/peripheral experience to absorb or ignore as you go about your business.
ARTWORK An attractive digipack holds this CD - what looks like an aeroplane fuselage spreads across front and back. Twin windows gleam on the main panel, metallic frames around bedarkend bloody red glass. On the back the windows are replaced by a tracklist of witty titles each accompanied by a time for the track. Brief credits and a Myspace page address are also found here. Inside is an eye testing banded pink/black backdrop to an explanation of the project that explains how the artist began his journey into mellow.
OVERALL Ian Ion is the Danish musician better known from such projects as Koxbox, Saiko-Pod and The Overlords among others - this being his first delivery of a solo ambient album. Gringo Locomotion is released through Norway's Chill Tribe Records home to a series of inventive downbeat CDs in recent years. This album began with a need to fill the musical space between festival highlights with something 'unobtrusive' for Roskilde. Bitten by the bug of the gaps a 'secret career' began leading to this experimental full length disc. Tracks range from a thirty second recording of Ian's previous agent talking on the telephone to the eighteen minute thirty one second concluding epic that rises out of night time insect noise into a thick, airy dream-like piece of beat free minimalism - exotic voices mumuring in the sonic depths.
CHILL TRIBE
CTRCD01 QUALITY RELAXATION
CTRCD02 RELAXED JOURNEYS
CTRCD03 EAR PLEASURE
CTRCD04 WOMBATMUSIC - Shameful Silence
CTRCD05 POLYPLOID - Grow Your Own
CTRCD06 IAN ION - Gringo Locomotion
CTRCD07 SUNKINGS - Before We Die
