Vincent Coomans

Influenced by Wilco, The Notwist, Bill Ryder-Jones and Sufjan Stevens, Belgian singer-songwriter Vincent Coomans also draws inspiration from painful moments and saying goodbye to the loved ones.

That deep sorrow can lead to great beauty has been demonstrated many times throughout music history. Minor chords can flawlessly channel both comfort and pleasure. This becomes clear once more on ‘The Great Escape’, Vincent Coomans’ album that was released last month.

Influences cited by the singer himself include Wilco, The Notwist, Bill Ryder-Jones and Sufjan Stevens. Divergent, and this becomes quickly apparent in the songs.

The singer drew inspiration from a succession of painful moments and saying goodbye to some loved ones. At the same time, the singer’s relationship was also full of questions about creating new life or not: bringing a child into the world is nothing you take lightly.

The result is a neat collection of mostly heavily ornamented songs, in which melancholy always paints the scenery in song and music. Musical bombast goes hand in hand with textual humility.

The title track is a good example of this. The production comes across as grand, listen after listen you discover new layers and details. In the song, the singer speaks of crashing, mourning and rebuilding. We all go through it sooner or later that various setbacks come knocking at the same time, and songs like this can be a mirror that helps us give a place to the accompanying feelings.

‘The Great Rebuild’ came out on Illuminine Records, the label of Kevin Imbrechts of… Illuminine. After being on the Belgian radio show Duyster together, an artistic collaboration grew, with Coomans writing lyrics for an Illuminine song. One thing led to another, and thus possibly to the basis for a fruitful long-term collaboration.

You can listen to the title track on YouTube and on Bandcamp. The rest of the album can be found on Spotify. Although ‘The Great Escape’ was released at the end of January, there will be a headline show on 12 May at the Wilde Westen in Kortrijk, the city where Vincent Coomans lives and works.

And hopefully it will not stop there: if it is up to the artist himself, he will complete the recordings of his next album, which should be very quiet and intimate, in 2023.

Stream “The Great Rebuild” LP on Spotify.

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Vincent Coomans on Facebook, Instagram.

Photo credit: Damon De Backer

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