(Photo by Thor Salden) The Belgian electro pop act Bazart returns with a brand new album, simply titled “2”. The new album will be out next week, September 21st, and will again feature dutch sung tracks. On the album you can expect 10 songs: Intro / Grip (Omarm Me) / Onder Ons feat. Eefje De Visser / Ademnood / Zonde / Niets Is Zeker / Het Doet Me Toch Iets / Vijf Dagen / Niet Te Dichtbij / Côte à Côte feat. Baloji / Nodig.

Out now is already the single “Grip (Omarm Me)”.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

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Drama in Belgium’s Twitterland as pictures of a dressed up Daan Schepers and Simon Nuytten from the electropop act Bazart turned up on social media and caused some drama.

All started with a tweet from an anonymous tweep – especially known for her trout pictweets – called Héloïse. She decided to call out Schepers for ‘blackfacing’ during a Halloween party. Blackfacing literally means performing in blackface makeup, but it has since been recuperated by extreme leftwing activist to turn whatever they don’t like into ‘it’s-a-racism-thing’ even when nothing bad is intended to start with.

Schepers and his girlfriend Paulien Riemis turned up at a Halloween party dressed up as Kayne West and Kim Kardashian (including a cushion of course) as you can see below. Nuytten (in t-shirt saying Bazalt with an L instead of an R) and his girlfriend Olga Leyers showed up dressed as Chinese (Yellowfacing according to critics). In a panic reaction both members deleted the pictures, but once on the social media, it of course stays alive as you can see below.

Even the press jumped on it calling it racist because of click beat reasons of course… Judge for yourself. Political correctness going in overdrive is what we make of it.

Other fans see through the commotion and wonder what the problem is with the Halloween pics.

Ik snap de rel niet zenne. Halloween kanye kan je nu eenmaal niet blank doen. Nothing racist about it. Grow up people. #bazart

— deanXphotography (@deanXphoto) 30 oktober 2017

First of all, dit heeft niks temaken met Bazart. Daarnaast, sinds wanneer moeten halloween kostuums ineens accuraat zijn?

— Eef ? (@evi_adriaenssen) 28 oktober 2017

Segh euh, die ‘controverse’ rond @bazart_band en onze vriend Kanye & the Asians… dat was toch een vroege aprilgrap, niet? #2muchPC #chill

— Dave Peters (@DeefPeters) 30 oktober 2017

En dan direct kwaad worden op die van Bazart, terwijl die zich wrs van geen kwaad bewust was.. Maar "drama" komop zeg, die mogen dat

— Amber ? (@ammberboth) 30 oktober 2017

Mag er nog wel iets?
"Bazart slaat bal helemaal mis met 'racistische' Halloweenkostuums"
Is dit zo? Wat mag dan wel?https://t.co/4BTgdTYI8C

— Chris10VdB (@chris10vdb) 30 oktober 2017

De twitterfight over Bazart loopt echt uit de hand, hebben mensen echt niets beters te doen ofzo ?

— PIEN (@pienmalfliet) 30 oktober 2017

Note that especially in Belgium and the Netherlands we have a lot less the habit in calling whatever racist – especially this – because we have the good old Saint-Nicolas tradition including every kid’s best friend, the blackfaced Nicodemus.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

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To celebrate the first anniversary of the debut album “Echo” the Belgian electropop formation Bazart will release the album “Echo Deluxe” including the extra CD “Echo Live” which includes 12 tracks recorded live in the Paradiso (Amsterdam) and the Lotto Arena (Antwerpen) during the past Summer.

And today the band also released the single “Voodoo” in a remix by The Subs, which you can listen to here:

Here’s how the band sounded in Amsterdam. Recommended release!

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

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This is the first article outside Holland and Flanders (Belgium) that talks about the Belgian electropop act Bazart. People who follow our Spotify playlist will know why we added them a few days ago: they offer great electropop music. And for the others, the reason why the name doesn’t ring a bell, it’s because they chose to sing in Dutch only, which works wonderfully we must say.

So here’s an introduction to the non-Dutch speaking world of what will probably become the most successful dutch sung electropop act of all times. In the past years only Arbeid Adelt succeeded to pull this off back in the eighties (although they never had the mass appeal like Bazart has), while several later dutch sung electropop projects from Flancers failed, including for instance the excellent – but completely forgotten – Kolk, a female fronted trip pop project featuring Luc Gulinck, Gerry Vergult, Maud Verlynde.

Bazart was founded by singer Mathieu Terryn and singer/guitarist Simon Nuytten. They debuted with their self released EP “Meer Dan Ooit” in 2012 before being signed to PIAS, through which they released the eponymously titled EP “Bazart” in 2015. That EP was followed by the download singles “Tunnels” and “Goud” in 2015 (“Goud” being the band’s biggest hit so far) and “Chaos” earlier this year (this time on the Pias powered Debonair label). Note that “Chaos” is a re-recorded shorter version of the one which was released on the band’s debut EP a few years earlier. You can download all these releases (except for the debut EP) right here.

Today the band consists of Mathieu Terryn (singer), Simon Nuytten (singer, guitar), Oliver Symons (singer, synths, guitars), Daan Schepers (bass) and Robbe Vekeman (percussion).

Check the videos below to see what you are missing out on:

And this is the band’s one-hour long show live at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels on 13 May 2016.

Bernard - Side-Line Staff

Chief editor of Side-Line – which basically means I spend my days wading through a relentless flood of press releases from labels, artists, DJs, and zealous correspondents. My job? Strip out the promo nonsense, verify what’s actually real, and decide which stories make the cut and which get tossed into the digital void. Outside the news filter bubble, I’m all in for quality sushi and helping raise funds for Ukraine’s ongoing fight against the modern-day axis of evil.

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