Ex-ANATHEMA Mastermind DUNCAN PATTERSON To Launch ÍON Project In Romania

According to Metalhead.ro, Duncan Patterson (ex-ANATHEMA, ANTIMATTER) will launch the debut album from his ÍON project on December 15 at Old School Club in Bucharest, Romania at an "Anathema Live Tribute" event. Produced by Metalhead and Absynthe Productions, the concert will also feature members from some of the most prestigious Romanian rock bands. The show will consist of a jam session featuring ANATHEMA songs, followed by a special concert by Patterson, who will play six tracks. In a recent interview for Metalhead.ro, Duncan said, "Im sure it'll be a great night — communication between many musicians paying respect to a band whose career has spanned 16 years and then a great party afterwards. These nights are what you make of them yourself."

You can read the entire interview (in English) at this location.

ÍON's debut album, "Madre, Protégenos", was released on November 27 via the Portuguese label Equilibrium Music.

Duncan Patterson's career traces back to the early '90s, when he began his musical incursions as a member of ANATHEMA, a group that would pioneer and remain as forerunners of the unique doom metal genre throughout that decade. Patterson would later also become involved with ANTIMATTER, a project which would find him developing his long-standing talent for emotional and atmospheric songwriting into new formats, and which he quit in late 2004 as the early sketches of what would later grow into ÍON were drafted.

One can arguably class ÍON as Patterson's most personal creation to date — a creation which he has fathered on his own, and one through which he taps deeper into his spiritual identity and heritage. This musical entity which Patterson has named after the Gaelic word for "pure" — a word which accurately pins down the project's mindset — seems to elude strict categorization, and even the apparently all-encompassing definition of world music falls short in defining the ethereal moods that "Madre, Protégenos" comes to reveal.

The patterns that fuse into "Madre, Protégenos" come not only from the varied instrumentation that musicians from Greece, Ireland, Mexico or Australia have added to the recordings. The album's unique diversity is equally produced by several female singers from Italy, Greece and Mexico — including Marcela Bovio (STREAM OF PASSION),Emily A. Saaen and Valentina Buroni (IRIDIO) — who contributed to the album. Their appearances come to add pieces of each of their country's colours and dialects to the blissful lead interpretation of Russian muse Emily Saaen, in an eclectic musical quest which feeds not only on each of its characters ethnic heritage, but especially on their own spiritual recollections and experiences.

For more information, visit www.ion.equilibriummusic.com.