Hendrik Lasure (albumrelease)

Hendrik Lasure – De Val

In 2022, Hendrik Lasure released his first album under his own name, ‘Het Wiel’. Four years later, that record is followed by ‘De Val’: eleven idiosyncratic Dutch-language songs in which Lasure constructs a world that hovers somewhere between the everyday and the magical-realistic.

Whereas ‘Het Wiel’ looked back on childhood, ‘De Val’ revolves around connection and the lack thereof. Melancholy and sehnsucht run like a common thread through the album, but Lasure wraps them in poetic scenes in which the ordinary world is constantly slipping slightly out of joint. People throw stones into the moat of a palace, the evening sun colours the sky purple, and a chance encounter can suddenly open up a whole new universe.

Musically, too, Lasure opts for the essence. For ‘De Val’, he swapped his familiar piano for a guitar whilst writing, a constraint that gave the songs their own form and directness.

The result is asparsely layered album with plenty of space for Lasure’s characteristic singing style: somewhere between melody and poetic parlando. References such as Spinvis, Mount Eerie, Sun Kil Moon and PJ Harvey are never far away, but ‘De Val’ has, above all, a signature sound all of its own. Avant-kleinkunst, nu-pop or something for which no name yet exists: Lasure makes music for those who like to escape reality for a while. 

Photograph (c) Flor Huybens