{"id":17,"date":"2019-02-04T08:58:34","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T07:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fr-nt.nl\/?p=17"},"modified":"2022-06-07T22:53:02","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T21:53:02","slug":"balthazar-en-de-liefde-van-de-inconsequente-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fr-nt.nl\/en\/2019\/02\/04\/balthazar-en-de-liefde-van-de-inconsequente-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Balthazar and the love of the erratic man"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u2018You said I could go fuck myself \/ and that's when I knew I wanted you to.\u2019<\/em> Sex, gluttony and seduction all around on Balthazar's new fourth album, full of eroticism, whether or not lyrically masked, and sensual, soulful pop like you've never heard from the band before. It's entertainment in your bed, baby \u2013 even though your seducers are actually quite squeamish in person.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Written by<\/strong>: Ruben van Dijk
Photos<\/strong>: Athos Burez<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAh yes, but music has always been about sex,\u201d Jinte Deprez says dryly when he is asked perhaps a bit boldly to what extent sex has been a source of inspiration for the new record. And of course you can fill a big KALLAX with \u2018sex records\u2019. Many of them (Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson, Voodoo<\/em> by D'Angelo, to name a few) are undoubtedly also in those of Deprez and his bandmate Maarten Devoldere, but operating in such regions themselves is an absolute first for Balthazar. It rarely went further than \u201cthe warmth and rhythm of your skin\u201d (on Then What) and now it\u2019s innuendo after innuendo after innuendo after innuendo. How come?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting an answer to that question, or getting the full answer to any question is not a very fruitful endeavor with Devoldere and Deprez. In conversation they are benevolent and articulate, but also adept at avoiding the very questions that the new record Fever<\/em> raises \u2013 namely everything about sex, love and masculinity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transformation<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The transformation into what Balthazar has become started even before the colossal Thin Walls tour (2015). They had played one hundred and sixty shows in thirty countries and that was reason enough to take a real break after six years. But with little or no room for a well-deserved holiday, the two leaders had already forged new plans and the Warhaus\/J Bernardt chapter began. The latter, Deprez's electro-soul project, warmed up many festival tents and brought forth the slick Running Days (2017). Warhaus, Devoldere's band, already got a foothold with two(!) rock-solid records, We Fucked A Flame Into Being (2016) and Warhaus (2017). Musically almost as exciting as the parent project, Warhaus was above all a vehicle for Devoldere to deeply stir his old soul, to be able to tell his own story completely for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Balthazar, gefotografeerd door Athos Burez.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is where the foundation lies for the new Balthazar, which at times feels more like a Warhaus and J. Bernardt collaboration album. In a way, Fever<\/em> is just that. The Balthazar sound as it has been dismantled and divided between the two projects in recent years has been glued together again but only very roughly. It is unmistakably the same band, but with the swing and smooth pop sensibility of J. Bernardt and the percussion, smokiness and horniness of Warhaus. Above all: the gentlemen have learned how to stir up their individual feelings and with that, Fever<\/em> is more focused, more personal and more direct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That change of course was planned, the how and what not in the least. \u201cI mainly think that we needed those solo projects to just start making music with a blank sheet \u2013 without rules that eventually creep in when you have a band and play all the time and tunnel vision comes into play. Those solo projects opened up that horizon again; everything was possible again,\u201d says Devoldere, the man with the drawling voice and the heavy Ghent accent. The palette also expanded somewhat during that period, he adds; more colours were being used to paint with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Crucial, however, was the rediscovery of each other. In a small festival circuit like that of the Benelux, the two were often at the same festivals, which means you go and watch each other\u2019s shows. Deprez: \u201cYou play together so much that you think you pretty much know that person. And then suddenly there\u2019s\u2026 a kind of nice jealousy that triggers you again.\u201d Devoldere: \u201cI saw Jinte play and thought, you talented motherfucker. That actually created that tension again and that desire to work with each other, because from the audience you look at your companion and think, shit, he's so talented. \u2026 At Balthazar performances you know that if I fuck something up, the rest will make up for it. I can't play guitar very well already, but then when we had to play three chords, I always missed one because I was just so casual about it. At Warhaus, everything falls on your shoulders, you are put on edge for a while.\u201d Jinte laughs: \u201cAnd suddenly he could play the guitar very well, as it turns out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Angry men & femmes fatales<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

A creative new impulse spawned that break, and a period when the two could also have a beer together and talk about something other than music. Whether that was necessary after all those intensive years together, or whether there was ever tension that was now resolved? Both Deprez and Devoldere shrug somewhat scornfully. \u201cWe are West Flemish,\u201d murmurs Devoldere. \u201cAnd that is very different from Antwerp or something. We're pretty conflict avoidant, easy going people, I guess.\" It\u2019s pragmatism all round, nothing\u2019s wrong, if we are to believe the gentlemen. The departure of violinist and founding member Patricia Vanneste in April 2018 gives off somewhat different signals. \u201cI experienced the adventure slightly differently from them. I tried to find a reason to stay but couldn't find one,\" she told Knack at the time. But Deprez doesn't mind that they are suddenly an \u201call-male band\u201d. \"We're just going to let our estrogen flow more.\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe feeling that we embrace that, that we are so full of shit, I think that's a great idea.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

More than before, however, this is a thoroughly masculine love record (or at least a record about love). In the shadow of a bad night, a broken heart and sometimes under the spell of love, Deprez and Devoldere sing about women who are often seductive, playful and a bit mean. \u2018Next man who's in line \/ better knows what lies behind \/ That vivid talk you got \/ it costs a man an awful lot \/ Well baby, just an afterthought,\u2019<\/em> we hear on \u2018Whatchu Doin\u2019. Or on \u2018Wrong Vibration': Girl why don't you give yourself a break \/ and find out what's your favorite mistake.\u2019<\/em> Deprez explains: \u201cI think every Balthazar album is about love, it's just a different way of singing now. When you're young, you just want to address a bigger picture or you want to proclaim this very consistent sentiment. But the fact is that we are very inconsistent people and your emotions change from day to day. And it doesn't matter if you're singing about something and you know your emotion is wrong or whatever. The fact that you think about it very differently the next day doesn't make it any less interesting to sing about it.\u201d Anger as a temporal state of being, a snapshot. \u201cEveryone knows that that is only a small phase in your coping process or something and that you accept the week after: ah, we had a good time and this doesn't matter in the end. You understand that even when you write it, that it is only a temporary thing. But that does not matter. It is still a beautiful emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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