“The creation of this album began as a continuation of my previous EP. Soft sounds, subtlety, pretty songs. And then it eventually turned out to be a completely different kind of monster,” says Jan Verstraeten, about his new album Violent Disco. His debut EP Cheap Dreams, released in 2019, is a counterweight to the punk scene from which he emerged. “These 6 tracks were made on a small budget, in a small room, on a small laptop. My whole existence at the time felt very small. Violent Disco, on the other hand, is anything but small. It’s an album of bold melodies and arrangements and big sounds, with a flashy confidence. Hence the title. For his version of a party album, Jan Verstraeten drew on influences from here and there. “I watched all the Mafia films on Netflix, and that’s where the soul influences come from. I had a triphop phase that inspired me and that I used for these Portishead-style rhythms and strings. There’s even a bit of Moby in there somewhere, much to the chagrin of my girlfriend! As the video for the first single Gone Gone Gone shows, Jan Verstraeten wanted music to be a journey. A playground. A colourful collage, something that doesn’t go from A to B in a straight line, musically or lyrically. “There’s chaos in everything I do,” he says.
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