Zea live in Vienna

Arnold de Boer follows his musical passion

With his Zea project, Dutchman Arnold de Boer follows his inspirations without following a congruent line of sound.

(Bild: Rosa von Ederen, Krone KREATIV)

Being caught in the middle can also have its advantages. With his Zea project, Dutchman Arnold de Boer produces a sound that spans many genres and is difficult to categorize. He will finally be coming to Vienna again soon.

If you are not exclusively devoted to format radio or do not allow Spotify algorithms to uncritically enter your heart and brain, you know that the true power of music is created by self-creating passionate people from the second and third row. They are the ones who keep the work going and the art interesting, in order to shine beyond the no longer clearly distinguishable excesses between superstars and AI. Dutchman Arnold de Boer is one of those who create their music not for commercial but strictly artificial reasons, preferring to change direction free of all expectations. With his project Zea, he originally started out as a five-man band, then shrank to a duo and has been on the road solo since 2009, reserving the right to invite guests into the studio or on stage.

The depression walks out
Musically, Zea is just as much of a grab bag as de Boer himself. His sound meanders between acoustic guitar, minimal electro, punk rock and singer/songwriter with a folk attitude - with some very special ideas. His album "Minimal Guitar", released in January 2021, for example, was created from impressions of long walks. After his summer vacation in 2020, de Boer decided on a Monday morning not to open his computer to answer emails about canceled and postponed concerts, but to simply set off on a walk. In eleven daily stages, he walked the 35-kilometer Amsterdam ring road, crossing all the canals and watering holes. He saw places in his home city that he had never noticed before and sometimes struck up conversations with complete strangers.

"When I got home in the afternoon, I had the intense urge to capture all these experiences in music. These walks made me happy again and lifted me out of my coronavirus depression," he tells us in the interview. In August 2021, de Boer also played solo in Vienna for the last time, and the open summers have at least put some money in the tight coffers. Forced standstill is the worst fate for an artist who, by his own admission, has played more than 2,000 live concerts. "For a few months, I did everything I always wanted to do and tidied up my studio in the attic and experimented, but then came the great emptiness." His children, now aged nine and six, were also astonished by the constant presence of their otherwise nomadic father. "When I was at home all the time, it was unusual for them when I left again. But I'm very happy that everything is finally okay again."

Learning cosmopolitanism
For his album "We Are Still Each Other's Only Hope", released last fall, de Boer teamed up with various friends and acquaintances such as Mats Gustafsson, Xavier Charles, the Ghanaian Francis Ayamga and the Japanese Arakawa Atsushi. He learned to be a cosmopolitan as a young adult during an extended stay in Kenya. "I was young then and had a pretty clear idea of life and the world. I was a narrow-minded anarchist. But in Kenya, where I was 19 at the time, I quickly realized that my values had little to do with the reality there. Instead of having prejudices and cultivating them, I began to question everything and examine it from all sides. There were times when I thought I had eaten wisdom with a spoon, even in music. Now I start from scratch with every project."

His Kenyan experience was immediately followed by a stay in Australia, where he mutated from an initial backpacker to a street musician and learned the next far-reaching lessons for his own life. "I suddenly knew that I had to tell my stories and absorb those of other people. That's why my music career in Holland only really took off after that." With Zea, de Boer has created a kind of second identity for himself that is intended for the public. The range goes beyond all boundaries, not only musically but also linguistically - he has even immortalized himself on recordings in his native Frisian. "It's my mother's language and I express myself much more emotionally and personally in it. When I sang in Frisian for the first time, it was as if I had discovered a new space in my head. I tend to use English for political and social criticism."

Punk is still important
De Boer's musical socialization took place in punk, and he has not cut his roots there to this day. Since 2009, he has also been the singer and guitarist of the Dutch cult band The Ex, which originally formed in 1979 during the punk explosion of the time. Guitarist Andy Moor, who hails from England, is always playing gigs, with the latest album "27 Passports" dating back to 2018. "We are a four-piece band that gets together in the rehearsal room and writes songs there. I have to share my ideas with others there, while Zea is entirely under my control and my ideas." De Boer enjoys working alone as well as being a team player. "Ultimately, however, I'm very happy that I can let off steam in both worlds, because I only feel complete together."

Live in Vienna
On April 29, de Boer is finally coming back to Vienna with his project Zea and friend/colleague Xavier Charles for a show at the Central Garden on the Danube Canal. Tickets at a really fair price are only available at the box office.