International Friendship Society

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International Friendship Society:The story goes like this ...when ..Leary.. .. a Solingen based HC band - supported the Japanese ..local.. - meaning Japanese .. HC heroes Envy in Japan in 1998, the boys from Leary had an unparalleled time .. full of exraordinary experience. This tour opened their .. and Leary..s bass palyer Fred Groborsch in particular .. eyes and they approached this foreign, extraordinary and exciting Japanese culture to an unexpected degree. Fred became friends with Envy..s Masahiro Tobita (guitar) and his wife Sakiyo. Still in Japan, Sakyio told Fred that once in a while she made some lofi 4-track recordings and got them released by small Japanese labels. This was the initiation of both of them sending each other various home recordings over four years. It was not before 2002 that they met again .. in Tokyo. During that stay the three of them recorded more ideas via a tiny analog 4-track recorder. This stay saw them develop an array of new ideas that gradually took shape. Back in Germany Fred arranged the tracks, added some overdubs to complete the songs. The same year, Fred got to know the famous double bass player Peter Kowald on a free jazz concert incidentally. Somehow .. and you now how these things go .. Peter Kowald took up Fred invitation to contribute some ideas to the IFS project and ended up in Guido Lucas.. ..Bluebox.. studio in Troisdorf, recording a few ideas. Shortly after these very creative and impressive sessions in Troisdorf, this wonderful man and double bass player died from a heart attack in a friend..s house in New York. So Peter Kowald..s recordings for IFS were some of the last he made .. and he left some even more significant footprints among the IFS members: during their sessions in Troisdorf he told a lot about his travels around the world for various concerts that saw him leave the concerts and countries with a wide array of new impressions. These in turn he tried to incorporate into his music again. And it is this hotch potch, this mélange of impressions gathered around the globe that is meant to characterize the music by IFS. Over the next few months Guido Lucas himself gradually played a growing part in the project - adding great ideas to the songs which finally took a quite unique and distinctive shape! Moreover, various German artists contributed to the project and joined in the recording sessions. Finally, the recordings offered wonderfully precious, fragile pop songs, certain structures of which you will encounter on the album. Everything became more orientated, it finally took a certain direction .. and just needed the final tuning and polishing. So Fred and Guido flew to Japan again in 2004 in order to record some missing vocal tracks. Some of these tracks were even recorded in her flat (if you listen carefully you will be able to detect the Tokyo street noise, the crows.. staccato crows and Sakyio..s cat on the table right next to the microphone) .. so this album even displaces some personal acoustic reminiscence.Back in Germany Fred and Guido added some instrumental tracks to the rough tracks from Japan in the ..blubox.. studio in order to give them the sound that seemed to perfectly fit to the songs created so far. Mix and Mastering followed .. and it is this first album now that has got the spirit of IFS. After seven years IFS..s history culminates in this marvelleous CD, ....very likely the first one of various to be released by this wonderful project.Moreover, IFS would like to express thanks to everyone involved without whom the project would not have been possible: musicians, layout designer, web designer. Just everyone who contributed to making this possible is part of the INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY.Enjoy listening to this CD!IFS (INTERNATIONAL FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY)