Illuminine releases new album #4
When Belgian guitarist and producer Kevin Imbrechts first released his minimalist instrumental songs on his debut album ‘#1’ in 2015, he had no idea that his music would launch a global project from his living room at home. "#1" was followed by the albums ‘#2’ and ‘#3’ and after more than 60 international collaborations with the most renowned artists and over 100 million streams, Illuminine is one of the most successful acts in the genre.
#4
In a world full of screamers, Kevin 'Illuminine' Imbrechts chooses to whisper. With soft and sensitive compositions, he offers his listener the security he himself has been looking for since he crawled into bed with his Discman as a teenager to fall asleep. As if the world has a switch that you can just pull down, if only for a few minutes.
Imbrechts has felt all his life that that switch is always on and that life overwhelms him more than any other. In 2017, at the age of 28, he first learned why that is: he has autism spectrum disorder. It explains why, as a child, he always felt tired for no reason: he was devastated by all his attempts to be 'normal'. As a teenager, Imbrechts was an excellent footballer, but a small unexpected change in the course of the game could upset him completely.
There are many stereotypes about people with autism: the maths prodigy, the loner, the taciturn introvert who lives in his own world... If they are true at all, they are only partly true. The fact that there is still so much misunderstanding has a lot to do with the efforts people with autism make not to let their surroundings notice that nothing is wrong. They seem stable, but inside, a huge mountain of expectations, wishes and thoughts is balanced by "a very small and fickle little man in my head", Imbrechts says. The slightest irregularity, even if it is just a banal lamp that no longer appears to be working, is enough to shake that little man in his head and develop the most implacable worst-case scenarios.
And if Imbrechts has faltered. In recent years, he ended up in hospital several times, physically and mentally completely burnt out. Music was - again - the only ray of light that came poking through the darkness. From that intense period flowed a new record: '#4', a radical new beginning after the trilogy of albums Illuminine recorded in Iceland over the past few years. Never did Imbrechts sound more personal and pure than on this record, essentially a record of how one man was saved by his art.
Imbrechts composed, played and mixed all the songs on his own, and so this story is also about regaining control over what you think and do. It is a plea for fragility and nuance, two things that this world lacks and that everyone can use, including people not on the spectrum.
Illuminine - Catch The Night In Marble Illuminine ft. Vincent Coomans - Catch The Night In Marble (Music Video) - YouTube
Before any sound ft Marble sounds Before Any Sound - YouTube
LIVE
08.11.2023 - CCHA, Hasselt (release show: full-band and visuals)
09.11.2023 - Schouwburg 30cc, Leuven (release show: full-band and visuals)
14.02.2024 - CC Zwaneberg, Heist-Op-Den-Berg (full-band)
16.02.2024 - Posthoorn, Hamont-Achel (full-band)
23.02.2024 - CC Het Spoor, Harelbeke (solo)
29.03.2024 - CC Mechelen, Mechelen (full-band and visuals)
GENERAL BIO
Kevin lmbrechts is Illuminine, emissary of melancholy and figurehead of minimal music in Belgium. In a world and a time of chaos, he radically keeps calm, guitar in lap. Alone in his room, but that doesn't make the listener any less welcome.
In 2015, Illuminine debuted with '#1'. He put on his bold shoes and sent the music to Birgir Jón Birgisson, Sigur Rós' sound engineer, and the two quickly became partners in melancholy. Birgisson was also behind the buttons on successors '#2' and '#3', records that contain the art of travelling without having to go in a straight line to a destination. lmbrechts found peace and connection in lceland. "Those warm but at the same time cold and deep sounds of their music, and the melancholic character of it: that seeps indirectly into what I make."
And what Illuminine makes strikes a chord with people all over the world who need it. In total, Imbrechts has since found more than 45 million kindred souls on Spotify. It earned him attention from renowned international media such as BBC, KEXP, The Guardian and Pitchfork. TV and radio makers from around the world often use his music to reinforce moments of reflection. In recent years, Kevin lmbrechts composed the music for Eric Goens and Diederd Esseldeurs' Belgian docufilm, 'De Stig' (2020), the British ITV series 'Against The Odds' (2022) and the Xbox game 'Somerville' (2022), among others.
After collaborating with Birgisson, lmbrechts would get to know many more kindred souls. He had his music and compositions recorded by befriended artists on solo piano, and recently he heads the A&R (Artist and Repertoire) of the new Hamburg label 'Blue Marble', where he works with artists such as Janus Rasmussen (Kiasmos), Niklas Paschburg, among others. Over the years, he has collaborated with the likes of Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie (USA, A Winged Victory for the Sullen), Alex Somers (IS, Sigur Ros, Jónsi), Will Samson (UK), Francesco Fabris (IT, 'Dark' Netflix), Valgeir Sigurdsson (IS), Jan Swerts (BE), Federico Albanese (lT) and so on.
With '#4', eight years after his debut, Illuminine takes matters completely into his own hands: he wrote, produced and mixed the record on his own. Only for the vocals did he get help from kindred souls Vincent Coomans, Marble Sounds, Hannah Corinne and Shellter. More than technical perfection, this extraordinarily pure album is about what happens inside. "There's no fog hanging around, no bells and whistles. 'This is who I am, as raw as can be", Imbrechts himself says of it.