Strings, electro, crafted words and the voice, both wavering and deep, of singer Bertrand Belin resonate on his eighth album entitled “Watt”, released on October 3. In twelve melancholic and nostalgic titles, the Breton digs a little deeper into the furrow left by Alain Bashung.
Three years after “Tambour vision”, Bertrand Belin chose to explore new soundscapes on “Watt”, thanks to a beautiful orchestration mixing synthesizers, guitar, drums and a piano which brings additional grace to the clever mix of his most recent albums. The themes of this album are existential. Bertrand Belin evokes our place in this world, our impulses, our fears and our questions.
On “Watt”, the artist sings even more than usual and his prose offers his legendary and paradoxical minimalism new arborescences thanks, also, to the participation of the composer and guitarist Rodolphe Burger.
Melancholy and nostalgia
“Watt” has accents of classical music at times, returning to synthetic pop with harmonious arrangements and compositions where each instrument seems perfectly in its place, when the words are never where we expect them.
“Watt” is the watts that come out of the speakers, the sound power, but it is also, as the artist indicates on son site internet “the strange sound referring to the famous and legitimate question of the English language”, “what”. “Watt” is another nod to the novel by the Irish writer Samuel Beckett. And finally, it is a reference to a cartoon, “Wattoo Wattoo”, an ecological fable which rocked the singer’s childhood, in which the music was both beautiful and disturbing.
With deep themes and multiple references, Bertrand Belin addresses in this eighth album the beauty of life with melancholy and nostalgia. Like a poet of soundscapes, in the tradition of Alain Bashung, whom he increasingly resembles, the Breton continues to question the world, but avoids cynicism and darkness in favor of a glimmer of hope.
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Bertrand Belin, “Watt” (Cinq7/Wagram). Published October 3, 2025.
In concert at the Docks, Lausanne, March 27, 2026.
