*100 copies limited edition* ‘Einde Were’ is the debut solo album by guitarist Nicolas Van Belle, recorded in late 2024 at Zinnema in Brussels. It will be released as KR007 on Klankhaven Records on vinyl, accompanied by a booklet of texts. At its core a mourning record, the central theme of this album is as old as time itself: the existential crisis that follows a breakup, loss, and/or farewell. Nicolas Van Belle transforms this universal aspect of life into a ten-part musical epitome, in which bowed electric guitar, detuned bouzouki, tzouras, classical guitar, and open tunings intertwine with fragments of distorted spoken word.
This work offers the listener a strong dose of catharsis—an opportunity to release any kind of grief, anxiety, or anger, and arrive at both mental and physical relief. The subject of this emotional purification is open to interpretation, giving the album a truly universal character. This is what makes Nicolas Van Belle a complete artist in the truest sense of the word: someone who succeeds, through artistic expression, in transforming his own suffering into everyone’s suffering—and just as much into their healing and renewal.
The creation of ‘Einde Were’ was entirely in his own hands: from the compositions to the full artwork, and even the printing of every single sleeve (100 copies in total). For this, he worked closely with artist Amber Verhulst, as well as with Victor Van Rossem of the Ghent-based record label bwaa.