Ron Boots – Mea Culpa

12 reviews for Ron Boots – Mea Culpa

1. 

   LouLou / Prog-rsiste – 2022-11-22

   Petite intro pour ceux qui feuillettent cette rubrique pour la premire fois et pour les autres qui foulaient les plaines volcaniques d’Io au cours des dernires annes. Ron BOOTS est le responsable d’un des meilleurs albums d’e-music de tous les temps, avec Acoustic Shadows, sorti en 2006 (PR 46).

   Depuis, je guette chaque album du divin Batave et quelle ne fut pas ma surprise de voir un second CD arriver dans les bacs alors que See Beyond Times est encore sur ma platine. Mais dans ce cas, surprise gale joie incommensurable puisque ce nouvel opus fait montre une fois de plus du talent exceptionnel de Boots, que ce soit en matire de composition ou de recherche des sonorits. Et maintenant il chante, en plus. Avec un peu de Johnny Cash dans la voix, s’il vous plait! Le tout sur une mlodie vanglienne en diable.

   Que dire de plus d’un musicien qui ajoute des (ac)cordes son arc chaque nouvel album. Qu’il continue s’excuser, seulement! Il est de toute faon pardonn !

   2010. LouLou / Prog-rsiste

2. 

   Matt Howarth / Sonic Curiosity – 2022-11-22

   This release from 2008 features 75 minutes of stately electronic tuneage.
   Boots plays everything on this release, with the exception of part of the drums and the FX on one track which were supplied by Harold van der Heijden and Michel van Osenbruggen. The voices and choirs on two pieces are from Symphonic Voices and Voices of Passion.

   Nimble electronics mark this music, etching vibrant melodies from liquid pulsations and squealing tones. Agile percussion provides suitably energetic locomotion. Keyboard riffs flourish and congeal, defining ambitious expressions of passionate sound.
   Luxurious openings grace each song, unfurling ethereal threads to form pensive inaugurations which gradually amass puissance and vitality, ultimately sliding into grandiose structures of delightful complexity. Levels of fertile emotion are attained, conveying sonorous glory with appealing ease. One track features a synthesized violin dawn that is remarkably pastoral and soothing.A rich, almost regal character dominates the riffs, filling each passage with noble sentiment. Spry arrangements bestow that majesty with lively agitation, flavoring the harmonic sovereignty with a whirling vigor.
   The percussion is quite bewitching, not just in the animated nature of the rhythms but in the very sounds used to create each beat. Inventive and alluring, the tempos embody a fascinating luster that excellently embellishes the exciting melodies.Conventionally lyrical vocals are featured in one track, expounding deep affection and using roses as an allegorical reference to mean anything the listener might hold close to their heart. The melody is temperate and stately, steeped in a soft reverence.Another track displays a surprising rock influence with chugging basslines, popping rhythms, funky guitar, and rich crooning that achieves a stellar sonority.

   These compositions possess invigorating qualities. Power is generated through compelling melodies which transmit this psychological stamina. Besides being entertained, the audience is infused with refreshing verve, fortifying all with new resources to face adversity and tribulation, whether they be social, physical or psychic.

   2009. Matt Howarth / Sonic Curiosity

3. 

   Phil Derby / Electroambientspace – 2022-11-22

   Dutch musician Ron Boots is back only a few months after his last release with Mea Culpa.

   The two-part title track is fantastic. The 19-minute first part opens the disc with electronic twitters and deep space sounds, followed by a slowly meandering bass line. Bright sequencing appears a couple minutes into it, joined shortly by a synth lead line and gently shuffling percussion. Drums eventually join in, and then a new synth solo takes over as the drums grow stronger. A key change a minute later cranks it up another notch. A couple minutes more, and the mood calms just a bit before building back up again to the end. I like pretty much everything about this track.
   The 14-minute Mea Culpa II” appears later on

4. 

   Sylvain Lupari / Guts Of Darkness – 2022-11-22

   What a beautiful surprise this last Ron Boots album is. Mea Culpa is a finely accomplished opus. An album rich in sonority and atmosphere which transports us, sometimes in a romantic universe, sometimes in an astonishing musical paradox with random movements sequences, hypersensitive solos, seizing synthesized laments and variegated sound effects which paddle in an environment well beyond the usual cosmic EM.

   The whole begins with Mea Culpa I and its fine enveloping wave which initiates an epic movement divided into 2 parts. A beautiful morphic and dreamy line which sails among sound wrecks to analog emanations, until a bass undulates slowly the tempo. A twinkling sequence mussels a hypnotic melody of its minimalisms chords. Gradually Mea Culpa I takes form. The sound effects flow and invade this slightly sensual tempo which is dandling in an astral universe. Curiously beautiful and deliciously strange, Mea Culpa I progresses in bizarre sidereal breaths, fill of hardly perceptible raucous voices, among an insisting synth. The progression is astonishing. Long synthesized laments howl in an atmosphere with many multicoloured sonorities, creating an environment out of the common. Cymbals flicker their metal wings, opening the way to percussions which initiate a heavier tempo on a more crystalline sequence. This unexpected rhythmic comes very close to the one on Klaus Schulzes Body Love. A very good piece which splits its rhythm, visiting softer spheres, others more furious, under minimalism sequences with nervous jolts and solids percussions which push us towards a final with solos as nuanced as the rhythmic evolution of Mea Culpa I.
   The 2nd part offers a heavier and darker atmospheric intro. Light arpeggios float through a sinuous drone and a slightly fluty mellotron. Sequences with chaotic glares establish a hazy tempo in a hostile cosmic gravity. Less poetic than part I, Mae Culpa II remains attractive with its analog approach and its dark synth which fly through an ambiguous maelstrom, before melting on heavy nevrotic sequences, creating a nervous rhythm girdled of beautiful solos. A rhythm which progresses with additional sequential movements, revolving around a more lyrical and harmonious synth, always keeping an open door on its atmospheric heaviness.
   Between these 2 parts, we find 08:00 Sunday Morning and his apocalyptic synth which shouts from the rooftops in a universe filled of caustic sound effects. A beautiful title which is dandling on a superbly melodious sequence. A hypnotic melody la Blade Runner, where celestial voices are encircled by a circular synth, thus reverberating and threatening waves. A strange shuffling piece of music which explodes of good solos and sequences to progressive sonorities, but always melodious. A track rich in atmosphere, as everywhere on Mea Culpa, just like the softly For Does and its violin approach.
   The Roses in my Life is in two shutters, one with Ron Boots vocal and the other instrumental. A slow piece of music with a hypnotic tempo and sonorities of slamming percussions. The sequence is superb and points out the melodious side of Vangelis. Synth and spectral waves in a grinding atmosphere, The Roses in my Life evolves gently on percussions more and more hammering, adding a bit of sensuality under light hardly audible “tchick a tchack effects . A musical world to astonishing paradox as we can hear, here and there, on Mea Culpa.
   Except Quicksilver and its frantic beat. Electronic funk with suggestive vocal samplings full of great aggressive solos.

   With this 33rd album Ron Boots continues to astonish, to the great pleasure of its many fans as well as EM and contemporary music disciples. Mea Culpa is a superb album where ambient and rhythmic symbiosis is done in an absolute musical charm. Ron Boots offers here 70 minutes of sensitive music, depicting the depth of the Dutch musician.
   A little treat for the ears.

   2009. Sylvain Lupari / Guts Of Darkness

5. 

   Ultima Fronteira – 2022-11-22

   Ron Boots, compositor holands y confundador del sello Groove Unlimited, nos presenta un nuevo disco, segundo de este ao 2008.
   Su msica como de costumbre es fascinante, lleno de colorido y de sonidos electrnicos de los que nos gustan a los seguidores de estos estilos musicales. Ron Boots es de esos pocos msicos que tienen la habilidad de no defraudar nunca, cada uno de sus trabajos es una muestra de su buen hacer, de sus ideas musicales, de sus recursos estilsticos, un placer para el odo.
   Mea Culpa” que es el ttulo que lleva este disco

6. 

   Paul Rijkens – 2022-11-22

   Mea Culpa” is Ron Boots second album this year and comes only a half-year after the wonderful “See Beyond Times – Look Beyond Words”.
   “Mea Culpa” in contemporary words means “whoops

7. 

   Artemi Pugachov / Russia – 2022-11-22

   I’ve heard dire things about this latest Boots album, with Ron singing and all. Alright, one should never judge a book before actually reading it, and the same also applies to music. So, with some trepidation, I slip this CD into the slot.

   And I am pleasantly surprised immediately, as cosmic pads fill the space between my ears at the beginning of the 19-minute Mea Culpa I”. Nice twittering effects add to the ethereal atmosphere. Slow bass notes are added and after a while in comes a high register melodic sequence. A wonderful melodic solo appears

8. 

   Tim Pullen – 2022-11-22

   A beautiful CD , that arrived on Saturday morning that has helped me get over the passing of my mother on Sunday of this week. Usually I would have been listening to TD but your new CD is absolutely stunning.

   2008. Tim Pullen

9. 

   Jeff Wouters / Belgium – 2022-11-22

   Well what can I say, Ron keeps on surprising all of us, that is for those who like his music and style.
   All the RB sequencing is present on this one but IMHO it’s been since Tainted bare skin” that he’s showing some “emotions” again. Just listen to wonderful “the Roses ..” not only for the text but the music behind it

10. 

    Ren van der Wouden / NL – 2022-11-22

    Superbly composed, realized and spirited by Ron B. This is how I like his music most. Highly recommended for all of you wandering through EM country. You can’t blame him he’s carrying the torch of Dutch EM right here, right now.

    2008. Ren van der Wouden / NL

11. 

    Mark Jenkins – 2022-11-22

    In contrast to the Kees Aerts release, Ron Boots gives a very comprehensive list of instrumentation on his latest CD, and has always been one for mixing deeper sonic experimentation with the bouncy analog sounds, and more recently with exploiting the possibilities of both hardware and software synths. So here you can try to pick out the sounds of the Prophet 08, Poly Evolver, Alesis Fusion, Roland D50, Moog Voyager, Korg Wavestation and M1, Access Virus, Clavia Nord Lead and Oberheim OB12 keyboards among others, from the software choir Voices of Passion and soft synthesizers by Arturia, East West and Native Instruments.

    Theres even a bit of vocals delivered by Ron, in a pleasant bass voice reminiscent of Demis Roussos, over a slowly rolling bass sequencer pattern on The Roses of My Life”

12. 

    Sylvia Sommerfeld / Schallwende – 2022-11-22

    Sag mal, hast du eine Gesangsausbildung gemacht? (SMILE!)
    Deine Musik berrascht mich ja immer wieder. Mea Culpa” ist ein weiterer Meilenstein – ganz groer Dank dafr!

    2008. Sylvia Sommerfeld / Schallwende“