Belgian Band & Producer-Collective BOOGIE BELGIQUE Reveals New Video Single ‘Wonder’ ‣ CVLTARTES

‘Wonder’, the third single from BOOGIE BELGIQUE‘s forthcoming album “Machine”, is a joyful yet nostalgic nod to their roots. In line with fan favorites like ‘Goodnight Moon’ and ‘Forever & Ever’, this modern melancholic Crooner, inspired by the 1909 Harold Orlob hit ‘I Wonder Who’s Kissing You Now’, mixes modern punchy beats with the best of the swing and big band era.

The track’s lyrical content and emotional throughline are steeped with longing, both in a desire for bygone eras, and its depiction of a person wondering about where life has taken their former lover. Even the track’s call and response between the line “I wonder who’s kissing you now” and the horn/string sections that answer suggest a conversation between two long-separated parties.

With chopped horn lines, a walking bassline, and a pumping four-on-the-floor drum groove, the listener instantly steps out of a time machine into the familiar universe of this BOOGIE BELGIQUE classic in the making.

BOOGIE BELGIQUE is a Belgian band founded in 2012 by Oswald Cromheecke. The project grew steadily through word of mouth, and Cromheecke was eventually joined by Emily Van Overstraeten, Cedric Van Overstraeten, Aiko Devriendt, Ambroos De Schepper and Martijn Van Den Broek. This collaborative approach to production gave birth to a new sound that stayed true to the nostalgic flair of the band’s beginning.

The band’s sound is a blend of electronic music and jazz, with hints of Bonobo, Wax Tailor, and Quantic. Varying anywhere between relaxing, intimate moods and energizing, danceable grooves, BOOGIE BELGIQUES’s music is characterized by melancholia, vintage samples, and a live big band feels.

Four years after the success of the band’s breakout album “Volta”, the Belgian project is back with “Machine”. Their sixth album draws a parallel to the 1930s both musically and politically. The album’s sound pays homage to the decade’s musical trends, such as the crooners, big bands, and swing.

The band puts this concept on full display in their album standout Wonder, which is a modern crooner track inspired by Harold Orlob’s hit ‘I Wonder Who’s Kissing You Now’ with nods to fan favorites like ‘Goodnight Moon’ and ‘Forever & Ever’.

In both eras, the music is meant to be escapist. In the 30s, fans of music danced their troubles away through exuberance. During the modern age in which this album is set, BOOGIE BELGIQUE invites its listeners to slow down, breathe, and heal from the frantic distractions of modern life that engulf many of us.

The parallel can also be seen in the economic and sociopolitical shadows of the decade that ultimately lead to catastrophic events. Though the threat is never named explicitly in their music, and the meaning of the album title “Machine” is open to everyone’s interpretation, this looming presence is something that can be seen in much of the album’s themes.

Feeling like they’re on the brink of losing things that are precious in this world, the band warns its listeners of fallen kingdoms (‘Tales of Old’) and the dangers of their ever-growing consumption in the present day (‘Risk’).

Whether it’s in the band’s Boogieman icon, or songs such as ‘Mercury’ (named after a celestial body that lost its planetary status), BOOGIE BELGIQUE continually returns to these themes; longing for a bygone era, urban decay, public uneasiness, societies falling from grace, and avenoir.