J.Bernardt, the alter ego of Jinte Deprez, returns with third album Wild Swim that sits somewhere between a full-throttle lust for life and a kind of euphoric nihilism. Picture Jinte striding through Los Angeles in a blazing suit, like he’s auditioning for his own midlife crisis. A guy from Belgium suddenly deciding subtlety might be overrated, that sometimes the stories you tell about yourself hold more truth than the actual facts of your life. The result is a record that feels like liberation: wild, warm, and bursting with life. For this occasion, Jinte leans into a caricature of himself: the washed-up European musician landing in America to reinvent his life. "I used to find it confusing when artists like Prince, David Byrne, or David Bowie hid behind personas," he says. "Now I get it. There's total freedom in that." So J.Bernardt got on a plane to LA alone, 20 songs and a bright orange outfit in tow, with the sense that, for once, he could fully surrender to this fantasy. The producer and musical polymath who handled every detail on Running Days (2016) and Contigo (2024) stayed home this time. It was the singer in him who boarded the plane. "In LA, I could finally lose myself in the role of a singer,” Jinte says. “I had a world-class band holding me up and total freedom to just explore. On my third solo record, I finally understood what singing can feel like." Producer Paul Butler (Michael Kiwanuka, Devendra Banhart) created the conditions for that shift. “He picked the songs where I wasn’t trying to be anything other than myself.” What emerged is a tight, coherent 9-track record, distinctly European in sensibility but eclectic as hell, drawing on songwriting influences from every corner of the globe, spanning from the 1950s to now. Musically, J.Bernardt stretches further than ever. His signature is still there, but stretches into something retro-futuristic, with Motown-inspired backing vocals as a thrilling counterpoint to his vibrato. Butler's kaleidoscopic production makes it feel as if every window in J.Bernardt’s mind has been thrown open at once. The record is funky, euphoric, and reckless all at once. Lead single Four In The Morning sets the tone: a moody pop track about someone hitting a moment of clarity, either at 4am and a little out of it, or in a rare flash of sobriety. “Some songs, like Remedy, had been sitting around for years and only now felt fully formed. Others, like Big Hopes, just poured out. I barely remember writing them,” Jinte says. It all comes through in the sound. Remedy still carries echoes of Running Days, while Children and Big Fat Moon lean into those long, seductive vocal lines he honed with Balthazar. Children stands out as sultry crooner pop with real hit potential, while Love Is On My Mind is another irresistibly catchy singalong. Wild Place To Start, Echo Chamber and Favorite Song explore different textures, from triumphant brass sections and subtle nods to French chanson to futuristic synth work. In the studio, the songs came together with that sunlit, no-nonsense LA energy: “Live, immediate, often in a single take, with a band that just locked in instinctively. Anything went. And so we kicked every door open.” With drummer Lewis Wright (Alabama Shakes), bassist Peter Randall (Adele), and keyboardist Mitchell Yoshida (Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros), the whole thing feels like it might veer off the rails at any moment. A sense of liberation runs through the lyrics, too. Where his previous records were explicitly personal, Jinte reaches here for something more universal, what he calls "a celebration of life's complete randomness." He insists that everything can be beautiful, difficult, and arbitrary all at once. That this feels like a departure from the weight of his earlier work makes total sense to him: "After the wreckage of a breakup, eventually you reach the point where you can see the humour in life again.” “I love how Talking Heads can sing completely absurd things with total conviction,” he says. “Life’s too short to take yourself seriously all the time. Enough about me. Let’s celebrate being alive.” That manic, celebratory drive is the record's beating heart: the songs don’t anchor themselves in reason, but in feeling. “The album is titled Wild Swim, taking its name from the song Wild Place to Start. It draws on a baptismal sentiment — being swallowed up by life and its wild current again — alongside other themes of rebirth that run through the album’s lyrics. It feels like a clean slate, a shedding, a surrender.” And that’s exactly how it sounds. This record, like its maker, is the most honest version of itself. "Like a fool born again / From nothing into something / Can you feel me now?" Jinte sings on Four In The Morning. The answer is an emphatic yes. Jinte is also known as the frontman of Balthazar, one of Belgium’s most beloved and enduring alternative rock bands for over two decades. His new album is his third solo record and his eighth overall, if you count the Balthazar catalogue.