Ron Boots & Friends – Joie de Vivre

Ron Boots & Friends - Joie de Vivre

4.5

Release data:

Ron Boots & Friends – Joie de Vivre
CD, Groove Unlimited, 2003


Actually, this is the second live cd of MORE (Music Of Ron and Eric) and in that sense the successor of the very succesful MORE cd “By Popular Demand”. The last mentioned cd was re-released on April 10 at the Alpha Centauri Festival in Huizen (Netherlands) together with the afore mentioned cd. Together they form a true brilliant team.

Newcomer “Joie de Vivre” contains over 70 minutes of live (and some studio ) tracks which, for the greater part, came about through improvising. The first three tracks – together about 45 minutes – are all descended from the CEOS- concert in Cologne. They form, as for me , the top of the already very glorious musical skills which Ron Boots & Friends have built up in the course of the years.

This triptych (performed by the exceedingly flexible running and again surprisingly strong tandem Ron, Eric, Kees and Harold ) leaves an impressing and above all, magic orgy of whipped up sequencers, soundscapes, effects and rhythms which will enthrall many a listener. In that sense it is one piece of pure, deeply rooted musical emotion which keeps on bubbling up and splashing apart in the ears of the listeners for 3 quarters of an hour.

In the slowly built up track “Stranger” very spheric vocodersinging of Kees Aerts has been recorded. After this track follows the – recorded in France one day later – planetarium piece “Light Pollution” by Ron Boots and Harold van der Heijden.

Track 5 is something special, namely a studioversion of the, at live performances very popular “Freewave” (a.k.a. “The Wavepolice”), in which Harold really goes bananas during his racy drumsolo in the in-between part of this track.

However, it is difficult to accustom to the studioversion, because the “bubbling excitement” of the live atmosphere is unmistakebly missing , despite an excellent performance and faded-in applause. A thing or two could be blamed on the fact that a qualitative good live-recording of “Freewave” wasn’t available. Also, the live recording failed more than once. (During their concert in Cologne the harddisk was full all at once)

The cd ends spherically with a 13 minute lasting Summerstudio-jamsession of Ron, Eric, Harold van der Heijden, Klaus Hoffmann-Hoock (Mr. Mind over Matter) and Harold Theunissen (of Syndrone).

Summarizing: For over 70 minutes “Joie de Vivre” leaves a superb musical statement of high-qualitative, flaming electronic music as it has been performed live by Ron & Friends throughout the years, always earning a lot of success.

In that sense this cd is a “perfectly chosen thank you” to their large crowd of loyal fans.

Website: www.groove.nl

You can see what reviews I have done of this artist on the Ron Boots artist page

 

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