Joop Wolters was born in 1971 in the Netherlands, and he’s truly one of my favorite guitarist and bassist players ever, all kinds of music taken into account !!! As most of the progressive bands and musicians I know today, which are also those I like the most, I first heard about his music when I discovered Hubi Meisel’s solo albums “EmOcean” and “Kailash”. Joop played the bass and guitars on some tracks of these albums, work that I liked very much and which led me to discover his own material afterward.
Joop Wolters’s second solo album “Speed, Traffic and Guitar Accidents”, purely instrumental, allowed me to can enjoy a great hour – 17 tracks – of his work !
Joop is a very versatile musician, who likes to play many different styles and not only sticking to one kind. He simply plays the way he feels on the moment he feels it and tadaa ! A new song is recorded. ;-) Just by following his own mood and inspiration.
He’s the one who writes all his music, records it, mixes it and engineers it at his own studio. Many other wonderful known and very talented musicians played on “Speed, Traffic and Guitar Accidents”: Vivien Lalu, Alex Argento and Mike Roelofs on keyboards, Daniel Flores, Patrick Eijdems and Nathan v/d Wouw on drums.
But apart from his solo albums – the first one recorded in 2003 and called “Workshop” - probably Joop’s most well-known band is ARABESQUE. He also likes to play with many different bands and artists from everywhere and from what I’ve heard till now, his own contribution was never disappointing !!!! It can only be an additional “strength” for these bands/artists to have his talent in their albums.
“Speed, Traffic and Guitar Accidents” is extremely great, very “warm” and emotive. An album full of strong emotions we can feel through every single note. Pretty fast, heavy and sometimes jazzy or smooth, it’s really difficult to give it a style, almost all the kind of moods you can imagine are present in this CD. ;-) Some tracks are very sweet and languorous, like “Loverslane” and “Canned Heart”. These are just perfect to relax a bit. Others are more progressive – for example “Interludalloveintersection” and “Disturbance” – hard rock, funky, jazzy, ethnic (like in “Acoustimas”, which has a little Latin vibe) and ambient. All this at the same time, so you CERTAINLY will find something for your own taste and this is the reason why I think anybody can not only LIKE BUT ALSO LOVE this album. A whole song never keeps the same musical style and for sure, the album will surprise you all the time, being filled with originalities, subtleties, passages you’d NEVER expect. You never know how it’s going to start nor end. Nor the way things will turn inside the track itself. Really, it’s a flow of emotions through instrumental and I don’t know how else I could call this. Just listen to this album with your eyes closed and build the story you like from those tracks. Instrumental albums simply give you the freedom to create whatever you want in your mind. Well, if you like Joop’s style, which is quite unique, you will really appreciate this album. And if you don’t know this fantastic musician yet, well…what are you waiting for ?
“Speed, Traffic and Guitar Accidents” truly deserves 10/10 for its great quality and I strongly recommend this fantastic piece of work to everyone ! I also invite you to visit his MySpace page as he adds news and new tracks there quite often. ;-)
Check also for his next project “SHADRANE” with Vivien Lalu and Virgil Donati.
Reviewed by Vikie Martel on October 24th, 2006
