Album Review: J. Bernardt - Contigo (PIAS)

J. Bernardt, aka Jinte Deprez, steps away from his role as frontman of Belgian Indies' Balthazar and dives into the labyrinth of personal loss with the confessional, Contigo. The album also serves as the basis for two consecutive Control Club shows as J. Bernardt returns to Bucharest on October 9 and 10.

"Contigo," meaning "with you" in Spanish, is the compass that guides through the tumultuous seas of a breakup. Throughout, Deprez’s admiration for artists like Serge Gainsbourg and Ennio Morricone is clear in the album’s cinematic qualities, particularly in its lush orchestral arrangements.

Conceived during a sojourn in Brazil, Rio opens things up, immersing us with majestic strings. It sets the emotional tone of Contigo without a single utterance. Then, Taxi captures the disorientation of unexpected news, unfolding like a late-night conversation with a stranger. The taxi driver becomes a silent confidant as Deprez pleads, "Can you please drive me to a point of no return?"

Don't Get Me Wrong shifts gears, weaving through orchestral swells and funk-infused rhythms. It dances between self-sabotage and self-realization, captured in a melody that refuses to settle.

Album highlight Last Waltz is a slow dance at the edge of an ending. Deprez's baritone carries the weight of unspoken words with bittersweet elegance, a recognition of finality wrapped in the warmth of nostalgia.

The title track strips things back into a moment of solitude on the empty dance floor. It is a place we've all been at one point or another—where silence speaks louder than sound. An interlude before Matter of Time hints at the possibility of healing. There's a gentle build, a sense that time, though relentless, also brings the balm of distance with it. But Mayday Call disrupts this calm, capturing the swirls of panic that often accompany letting go. The horns blare, the rhythms accelerate, thrusting all into the heart of turmoil. Like Taxi, it's another example of the effective combination of structured classical compositions with loose, funk-driven rhythms.

Im the Ghost You Forgot and Our Love Was Easy explore identity and memory. The former drifts through familiar haunts, while the latter offers a sparse arrangement that highlights the juxtaposed simplicity and complexity of past love.

The soaring closing track, Free, is a thematic culmination that poses Contigo's lingering question: "Are we lonely, or are we finally free?" It's an ambiguous resolution that acknowledges the cyclical nature of endings turning into beginnings turning into endings, all with the recall and moodiness of 60s and ‘70s French and Italian cinema.

Contigo doesn't rely on grand gestures or overwrought spectacle. It finds strength in its honesty, subtlety, and authenticity. It doesn't pretend to have all the answers but asks the right questions.