Shortly after the excellent album “La Caída De Harmigón”, Ron Boots releases “Ante Oculos”. Ante Oculos is an expression from art. The biggest part of this album contains the music that “Big Ron” and his friends Eric van der Heijden (synthesizers), Harold van der Heijden (drums), Frank Dorittke (FD Project, guitar) and (new friend) Jamie O’Callaghan (electric violin and synthesizers) played at a concert in the planetarium of the German city Bochum. This music is somewhat more “spacey” than we are accustomed of by Ron. The theme of the album is 2012, the year we are living in and the year in which (according the Mayans and Nostradamus) the end of the world will come.
Everything Ron does, solo or together with his musical friends, is of high quality. “Ante Oculos” opens nice and rich with “Ad Iemporum Sidelines” that calls upon a wonderful atmosphere. With this track, Ron that he is (also) a master in space/ambientmusic. “Xenophobes And Other Weirdos!!” is more percussive but again breaths an excellent atmosphere. Also, strings from the famous Mellotron are used here. Jamie O’Callaghan can be heard of the electric violin in the great titletrack. The combination between the violin and Boots’ ambientsounds are well found and something we don’t hear so much in electronic music. Hopefully, the two will continue working together in the future. Slowly, this composition develops into more rhythmic work but the atmosphere is not forgotten. “Can We Predict? Part 1” Is almost pure ambient and in “Can We Predict? Part 2” a metallic rhythm is added, as well as a Vangelis-like solosound (from the impressive Yamaha CS80 synthesizer or a software version of it). Talking about interesting combinations: Frank Dorittke (FD Project) plays his Mike Oldfield electric guitarsolo’s in “The Sorrow Remains Of Things That Past”.
With “Ante Oculos” Ron proves that is also very well at home in spacemusic. The album asks for more concerts in a special place like a planetarium. Ron remains the best and most important electronic musician from the Netherlands.
Read more...