Hendrik Lasure resurfaces under his own name with ‘Prooi’. The song takes us to a weathered castle estate, where a nocturnal intruder lies hidden in the wet grass, searching for something. What begins as secret fascination gradually gives way to complete surrender: the hunter wants to become the prey.
It is a suitably dark setting, and musically Lasure ventures into the shadows too. A hollow drum machine ticks away beneath ‘Prooi’, surrounded by synthesizers and warm, full-bodied guitars that carry a trace of early-2000s grunge. Lasure himself plays guitar, synths, drum machine and piano. Meskerem Mees on bass and Jolan Decaestecker (Ão) on electric guitar bring two distinct musical worlds into the fold, while Sep François on marimba and Aya Suzuki on vibraphone and glockenspiel complete the arrangement. The single was produced and mixed by Koen Gisen.
‘Prooi’ is Lasure’s first new music under his own name since 2022’s ‘Het Wiel’. By then, the pianist and composer had already built a strong reputation within the Belgian jazz scene through projects including schntzl, Bombataz and An Pierlé Quartet, but for his first solo album in Dutch he deliberately chose a different route. He stepped away from the piano, picked up a guitar and began singing the way he speaks. Words became the starting point, delivered in a voice allowed to sound as unpolished and direct as his everyday speech. Pop, chanson and experimentation met without paying much attention to the lines separating them.
Lasure has hardly been idle since. He continued working as a musician and composer, writing music for film and theatre, but released no further solo material. ‘Prooi’ changes that. A new album follows in November.
