On The Move was recorded in the UK in late 1975 and released the following year. Not only furnishing these eight tracks with sumptuous arrangements, van Otterloo also composed seven of them. The opener, Go On Forever, is an extended arrangement of the Dutch hit song We Zullen Doorgaan by Ramses Shaffy that sounds absolutely gorgeous, with new lyrics sung in English at the end. Otherwise, from Rogier's pen we alternately get exquisite slow numbers like Alfie's Lullaby, Alone At Last and The Eternal Triangle, or funky grooves like the title track, My Dearest Fluffie (with vocals again) and the slowly-building closer The Flattened Tenth.
The French Collection, recorded in London in September 1976, is an album of interpretations by French writers as per its title. There's a track missing from the LP, Cent Mille Chansons - perhaps for reasons of space, although Vocalion often do 2-CD releases when paired LPs top 80 minutes, so who knows. The eight tracks here are mostly on the high-quality easy listening side, superbly arranged, and Les Gars De Rochechouart gets a catchy light funk groove going with great drums, wah'ed guitar and electric piano. In fact, every track on this CD just sounds so damn good I can't stop listening to it at the moment - wish more van Otterloo albums were reissued. He did a few more with Polydor, then took up the Metropole Orkest baton in 1980 (they're currently conducted by Jules Buckley), before he sadly died of cancer at age 46.
pw: sgtg
