J. Bernardt — aka Jinte Deprez (Balthazar) — shares the third single from his upcoming studio album Contigo, out on May 17, 2024 via Play It Again Sam.
Get ready to sway into Spring with Last Waltz; a mesmerising slice of orchestral pop that will instantly sooth your soul. Deprez’s distinctive baritone vocal soars effortlessly over beautifully layered and transcendent soundscapes, creating something truly captivating as a result.
Talking about the release, Deprez elaborates: “Last Waltz is not a waltz to begin with, but the sweeping violins do introduce the contemplations of a croon-esque goodbye, looking back at what once was with an early smile and an acceptance long overdue. It’s a drunk romantic flat-out surrender to the new reality, choosing to remember the beauty of the past. Because ‘lord, we did have a good time”.
Listen to Last Waltz here: jbernardt.ffm.to/last-waltz
Pre-order the new album Contigo here: jbernardt.ffm.to/contigo
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Contigo — Spanish for “with you” — is a dramatic, compelling and colourful body of work, infused with drama and brought to life by sumptuous melody, vocals and production flourishes from a master studio auteur as well as musical inventor and singer. Contigo explores all the phases of a break-up: shock, sadness, anger, denial, hurt, acceptance… and nails ‘viciously romantic’ in the process. “I know a break-up record is a cliché,” says Deprez. “But I’m growing to love cliches! I wasn’t afraid to go all the way. Forgetting about the break-up by singing about it is like self-sabotage, but I’m having fun with it too”.
A classically-trained violinist, Deprez has scored all the orchestrations for Contigo. He’s something of a generalist; singer, songwriter, instrumentalist, arranger, producer, engineer, programmer. He started producing with the first Balthazar album in 2008 (he’s co-produced three of their five albums to date), and his debut album (released in 2016) is entirely self-made. Whilst Running Days melange of sound was moulded by electronics, te new album Contigo is old-school band-based — namely a group of Deprez’s “super-talented,” friends that he guided through intense rehearsals and performances, “searching for that spark,” ably assisted by producer and mixer Tobie Speleman.
Deprez is best known as one half of the singer-songwriter duo of Balthazar, one of Belgium’s most beloved and respected alt.rock bands for over two decades. As a group, they have performed at numerous prestigious events and venues such as All Points East, British Summer Time, Electric Ballroom, Village Underground, Scala, as well as selling over 600,000 albums worldwide. Running Days has been streamed over 40 million times globally.