About Ion
Ion : User-friendly Electronic Music
Ion is an electronic music band based in the North East of England.
The band was founded in 2007 by David J. Hughes and Jules C, and they compose and perform a style of electronic music that is rich, melodic, intelligent and, above all, highly user-friendly.
Most people will know David as the founder member of T-Bass and the last man standing in the SkinMechanix collaboration. Both of these ventures typify the Hughes approach to making music. In other words, foot-on-the-floor, pedal-to-the-metal, full-on electronic power tracks with only an occasional nod towards slower, more romantic moods and feelings.
Ion cuts off at a tangent and is, according to Hughes, an attempt to get back to basics, to celebrate the art of writing good music with intelligent arrangements, aiming for perhaps a more symphonic and, dare one suggest, a more mature sound as opposed to all the bombastic posturing of previous incarnations. David is, after all, getting on a bit these days and needs to take it easy.
Ion came about because the band felt disillusioned with the state of the UK Electronic Music scene. In their opinion, this once thriving, prosperous collection of musicians and enthusiasts had degenerated into nothing more than a collection of wannabe 70's TD clones, all intent on replicating music that was, essentially, history 30 years ago. More so, the band felt that the scene was being ruined by a small number of retail outfits, all of whom were at each other's throats, all dictating which albums would be successful and which would fall by the wayside, all scrabbling over an ever-diminishing customer base, all apparently oblivious to the technological changes going on around them. Pick the wrong side and your sales took an immediate hit, your calls would not be returned and your e-mails ignored. That's no basis for doing business in the modern world.
Ion were determined to move in a different direction, a direction which celebrated the art of writing good music and not just re-arranging the same old tired eight-note sequences, a direction which took advantage of the huge number of legal download outlets and their ever-expanding customer bases. They also wanted to expand the number of radio stations able to play their music and, furthermore, to explore other avenues such as writing music for TV, film, radio and the stage. To assist in this process, the band re-established the old Thinking Metal label as an outlet for their music.
Ion's debut album, Future Forever was released in April 2007 though faced with luke-warm reviews and a less than enthusiastic reception from the Cultural Stalinists still at work in the UK scene, the album was in real danger of sinking without a trace. However, a chance encounter with US based distributor Magnatune gave the project a fresh injection of energy and, six months later, Future Forever went to the number one slot in the Magnatune download chart (followed immediately afterwards by SkinMechanix' The Secret Life of Angels).
In time, Future Forever was picked up by all of the major download outlets - iTunes, CD-Baby, Napster, Rhapsody and, most recently, Spotify. Magnatune were also able to license selected tracks from Future Forever for use as soundtracks in various TV and radio projects. This area of interest was expanded again in 2009 by licensing tracks through libraries such as Shockwave Sound and Revostock.
Live performance is also very important to Ion and, again, the band are keen to expand their sphere of influence. They are probably the only band in the UK still playing this kind of melodic, thoughtful and intelligent music, and they plan on bringing their sound to a whole new audience. With two successful concerts for the Awakenings organisation behind them, the band aim to bring their sound to a local audience first and, if that's succesful, expand this into a more national and/or international scope.
So, that, in a nutshell, is Ion. Listen to the music and simply enjoy.
Synth music doesn't get much better than this.