Loïc Nottet has told journalists in France that he is working on an album set for release sometime in the first half of 2016.
It’s now half a year since the 19-year-old Belgian singer won fourth place at the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 in Vienna with his self-penned song, Rhythm inside. In the months since, Rhythm inside was certified gold in his native Belgium and in Sweden, and Loïc has been appearing as a contestant on the Belgian show, Dance avec les stars, as well as recording new music. My schedule’s very tight, he said in an interview with French website tf1.fr.
The rehearsals for Dance avec les stars are getting more intense. I don’t do it every day, but sometimes I get up at 8 in the morning and I go to sleep at 3 in the morning. I do On Sundays, I work. There’s no reast. Now is my time for hard work and focus.
Loïc’s debut album has at least six working titles at the moment and he is constantly recording, rerecording and experimenting with new songs, although he has confirmed that Rhthym inside will feature on the album’s tracklist of roughly ten songs. I’d like an album with characters, he says.
And with a story that is told progressively. The story might be about a group of young people fighting for some freedom. I am someone who loves parallel universes, like Alice in Wonderland, so that could also be incorporated. I do not like reality. And I’d like to make videoclips for the songs, clips with dialogue also in clips like mini-movies or short films of 5, 6, 8 minutes.
And those stories, Loïc says, will be told in English. Because I love English, he explains.
Since I was little, I always listened to American and British music. I also come from a country where the language is a cause for discussion. There is the French side and the Flemish side. I like equality. I said, “If I do not sing in French, I will not benefit the French, and Dutch speakers will perhaps feel more involved and I’m not going to sing in Dutch not to benefit the Flemish..” French is my mother tongue. I speak a little Dutch, “een beetje”. But it is a very complicated language…
