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About the music on MySpace
The latest release on Itofarm (October 2009) is the album 'Hong Kong Memories' by Bamboo Industry. This album contains previously unreleased material from the 80's and is mainly circling around the asian side of Bamboo Industry. Some tracks are demos, some are studio rough-mixes and some are final studio productions.
On MySpace you can listen to the opening instrumental track called 'Hong Kong Memories' - a vital track bursting out with a vibrant melody, done by a wild bunch of electric guitars. This is the way I do remember the streets of Hong Kong best - always noisy and in motion. 'Mother Exiles Her Sons (Demo)' was recorded for the 'Kunstdisco'-project of the German Goethe-Institut, which took place during the Olympic Games 1988 in Seoul, South Korea. The song is based on a traditional Korean folk-melody playing in the background, while voice and piano shift through melancholic chord progressions. The lyrics are dealing with the subject of the two divided Koreas and the repercussions for their citizens. The music from Zen Hanami is conceived for contemplation and meditation or simply for creating an atmosphere of ambient well-being. The predefined duration of 15 minutes per track allows the listener to accompany, for example, his fixed lessons of Tai Chi, Yoga or meditation.
Each Zen Hanami album is based on a specific theme: Zen Hanami - Volume 3 takes the listener on a journey through a moonlit night - full of atmospheric sounds and unknown spheres.
Here on MySpace you can listen to an excerpt from this album: 'A Night Scene With Birds'.
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The track 'Mackerel Sky Blue' is taken from the album The
Sombre Poet.
'Sunset On Sea (excerpt)' is taken from the album Death On The Hood.
This music was originally an ambient soundtrack for an art exhibition by the german painter Karmers about the sinking of the british battleship HMS Hood during Worl War II. The first exhibition took place in London,May 2002 and a second one 2 years later in Hamburg, Germany.
I remastered the successful album 'Sleep & Poetry' by my former band Rain On Bamboo in 2007.
I guess, for me 'Sleep & Poetry (Remastered)' is more like the originally intended version of the album - it sounds much better than the old one and the tracklisting is now as it should have been back then, if all the recorded songs would have been at hand. It also features 2 songs, which haven't been on the original album.
The song 'Painted By Eisen' is one of my long-term favourites!
Finally, the excerpt from the audio book Kokain is a good example from this well received project about the german poet Walter Rheiner. His novel 'Kokain' is read by the german actor Helmut Krauss. The complete novel as a download and more information about the whole project can be found here.
Biography
Ingo Ito started his musical career as a sound engineer at the famous Hansa
by the Wall studios in Berlin, where such outstanding records were done like
"Heroes" by David Bowie, "Black Celebration" by Depeche Mode or "Achtung Baby"
by U2.
During the 80s he worked as a session guitarist for, among others, Inga & Anete Humpe (Ideal), Thomas Fehlmann (Ready Made, The Orb) and as a sound engineer/producer for local Berlin bands and artists like Koolkings Kristof "Justice" Hahn ("Down By Love"). In 1984, he and George Din founded the band Bamboo Industry and a few years later he started the dance-project "The B.h.h.", together with Din, bass player Susa Lie and keyboard player Robin Loxley.
The B.h.h. contributed dance music with roots in ethnic and world music to the
"Kunst-Disco", a project by the german Goethe-Institut. This futuristic discotheque was
one of the main attractions during the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.
It had already been in the late 70s (after visiting a "Frippertronics" record-shop
concert by King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp) that he started to focus on
exploring new sound textures with treated and manipulated guitars. The next
step was to use guitar synthesizers (until today he has been using a Roland
GR-300 and others) as well as any type of looping device (tape-machines, electronic
devices and software).
In 1989, his interest in mixing electronics with modified guitar sounds brought
him together with Heiko Maile of the german synth-band Camouflage and soon afterwards
he joined them for their second album "Methods Of Silence" and the succeeding
tour. For the next 6 years he worked with Camouflage on all of their albums,
singles and concerts and also wrote some music and lyrics for them.
Parallel to Camouflage he continued working with Bamboo Industry and the follow-up band Rain On Bamboo (for more information about these bands please click on their corresponding links to their own ITOFARM pages). In 1998 and 2002 Ito worked on ambient music installation for exhibitions of the german painter Karmers in London and Hamburg and in 2004 he wrote the music to the much noticed audio book "Kokain", a double CD about the life and death of the german poet Walter Rheiner (1895-1925). For some time past, Ingo Ito has been living in Spain and has recently started to work on new projects.
In Zen
Hanami he summarizes his many years of experience in the field of ambient
music.
Please visit ITOFARM for more detailed information on all projects and releases. Personal thoughts and events, chitchat and babbling - this can be found at ITOBLOG and you might post your own comments there as well if you wish.
There is an online store
at ITOFARM, where you can buy songs and albums as mp3 files (320kbps bit rate)
and some albums are also available as FLAC downloads, providing CD quality audio.
The Itofarm Store is available in english
 or
german 
There are also regularly alternating free
mp3 downloads available under the heading "Tones as Tapas".
Ingo Ito at We7
/ Facebook
/ last.fm
/ Discogs
Zen Hanami at iTunes Music Store / Amazon / CD Baby
/ We7
/ PayPlay.FM
/ last.fm
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