ALBUMREVIEW : PIETER NOOTEN - THIS IS WHY

Being 42 I think I can say that my life has been dedicated to music, sometimes it's a pain to realise and then at other moments it's a relief.
When you spend all your hours in this life to music you happen to have idols and I guess I must have more than 10.000 by now but I also have some heroes.
All my heroes are musicians and I think I have enough hands to count them, must be around 10 I think and Pieter Nooten is one of them.
Who is he, you say?
True, it's not exactly a name that ring bells but in the 80's he did something in the 80's that changed my musical world and the whole musical universe I think.
Along with Ronny, Anka and Frank he created Clan Of Xymox.
Thousands of bands are forgotten today but tons of people remember how Pieter played the keyboards in a way I never heard before.
Pieter's play was both uplifting and melancholic at the same time and from time to time, he even picked up the mic by Xymox to sing songs I thought they only could be performed by Gods.
If you don't believe me, just check out "After the call" by Clan Of Xymox.
Nothing is perfect in life and Pieter and Ronny went seperate ways.
Around that time Pieter Nooten released along with Michael Brook (and the use of Brian Eno's own Yamaha DX7-synth) the immortal "Sleeping with the fishes"-album.
It might be my pussy heart but I cried tons of times on this masterpiece, but as life isn't based on tears alone, I also got my pleasant moments with this one.
Twenty years Pieter dissapeared out of sight, even if he worked along with Anka Wolbert and then I got informed by the man himself (what a genius thing this Facebook is) that he has a new album out.
And yes, and from the very first second I felt this was going to be another album that will be played till the day I will seek my eternal sleep.
In all honesty "This is why" just felt like a sequel to something of the most beautiful things I ever came across, yes...it comes very close to the atmosphere and musicsound of Pieter's debut on 4-AD.
It feels like a soundtrack from dreams in where you realise things can only be formed in your imagination, the unreachable things.
I never thought I would ever embrace that old feeling.
I could quote here many lyrics from songs he played in the 80's but I won't do it as Pieter said it in a recent interview : "now" is the time that counts.
You're a hero, Pieter, and heroes never let you down : even if the wait was long you didn't.
If you can read Dutch, you can find an exclusive interview I did with Pieter on www.darkentries.be