Urban Trad releases new single: De l'air

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It has been a bit silent around Urban Trad in Belgium this year but last year's Eurovision Song Contest runners-up had a good reason for it. This week they released their new single De l'air and a new full album is ready to be released in October.

This week, Urban Trad released a new single in Belgium. After several singles in artificial languages like Kerua, Sanomi and Quimper-Moscou, last year's Belgian Eurovision Song Contest participants now turn to French with De l'air.

The new single has a bit more of a pop feel but still reflects Urban Trad: traditional and urban. “De l'air is a modern song with a hip-hop beat, sung in French and a little bit of Gealic,” says Yves Barbieux, the leader of the band. “This song is more open towards all folklores in Europe. It's more than only Celtic music, which used to be our biggest inspiration until now.”

Urban Trad's new album can be expected in October. No artificial languages like in Sanomi this time. “We wanted to please the girls and let them sing in real languages. The target of the artificial language was to be universal, but to stay open towards the world we turned back to the real languages.” says Yves Barbieux.

The album will feature songs in several languages, including French (the language of the first single out of the album), Dutch, Spanish (singer Veronica Codesal has Spanish roots) and even Swedish which is spoken by Urban Trad's Flemish singer Soetkin Collier (who was not allowed to go to Riga because of her Flemish nationalistic past).

If Urban Trad doesn't fear to lose a part of their audience by singing in real languages? “Maybe,… maybe not. We worked with English producers who seemed to have fun to work on all songs. For example we changed the song in Dutch until it sounded nice for a French speaker too.”

Urban Trad still doesn't regret their Eurovision Song Contest participation. “We left our business card behind in Riga and it helped us reaching a gold disc… After the Eurovision period we had a more quiet period, especially as for concerts. But now we have realised that people know more about Urban Trad through word of mouth, and that they know more than Sanomi.”

Urban Trad saw for the best Belgian result at the Eurovision Song Contest since Sandra Kim won in 1986.