The health crisis in March 2020 forced the closure of the theatre and paralysed the development of this unique show at the crossroads of disciplines, which, up until then, was met with both critical and commercial success. In the following social isolation, Rone felt the need to come closer to his artist friends and to reshuffle his creations with their voices as the new beating heart. The only good thing bound to this pandemic is that they too, deprived of touring and slowed down in the productions of their upcoming albums, found themselves available to infuse their vocal and textual energy into Rone’s recent laidback productions.

This collection, entitled “Rone & Friends“, has the musical colour of Rone’s friendships, of his crushes for a few additional less expected guest voices, but also inevitably of his own personality. The collaborative album is based on an electronic backdrop of previously unreleased titles, alternative versions of “Room With A View” or his first feature film soundtrack “La Nuit Venue”.

First of all, there’s this title from his “buddy”, the science-fiction author Alain Damasio, which Rone has had on his hard drive for a while: a slightly erotic pastiche to Serge Gainsbourg entitled “un”. Rone unearthed a deep and pastoral version of “Human” where the voice of Efterklang singer Casper Clausen seems to take on the accents of Matt Berninger of The National.

The artist reactivated the aborted collaboration projects with his close circle and spontaneously collected a big handful of titles. To these first “Kind-hearted” reactions, came three female collaborations with the English singer and multi-instrumentalist Georgia, the Iranian Roya Arab (seminal voice of the “Londinium” of the group Archive) and a rising figure of the ambient scene, Malibu, with whom Rone had always hoped to work.