V2 records news – Wouter Dewit announces new album ‘hold’

WOUTER DEWIT Announces New Album "Hold"
OUT 14 MARCH 2025

''HOLDING THE SEA WITHIN"
Holding the sea within - Single by Wouter Dewit | Spotify

Friday 28 March Live @ Klara Festival, Ixelles

With his neoclassical and minimalist piano compositions, Wouter Dewit has long been recognized alongside celebrated names like Nils Frahm, Ólafur Arnalds, and Joep Beving. For his latest album, he challenged himself—and his audience—by recording a single, 50-minute piece. Hold also marks the conclusion of a trilogy, following Still (2017) and Here (2019). The album will be released on March 14 on V2 Records.

The seeds for Hold were sown over five years ago, even before the global pandemic took hold. "I was simply continuing my work after Still and Here," Dewit explains. "The idea of playing one continuous 50-minute track came early on, partly out of stubbornness—to see if I could pull it off. One weekend in 2020, I played the piano in a single take, without looking at the clock, including the inevitable small imperfections that come with playing for so long. Later, we added bass, drums, strings, and electronics. But the piano line remained the untouched canvas I didn't want to alter."

An album with a single track, split into two 25-minute parts for vinyl, is hardly a conventional commercial move, Dewit acknowledges. "When the vinyl format split it into two parts, it turned out to work surprisingly well. I enjoy those kinds of serendipities." A fun fact: both Still and Here also run exactly 50 minutes. "This is the first time I'm asking so much from the listener. It demanded a lot from me too, but it was something I had to do at least once."

To cater to radio and streaming platforms, Dewit extracted three segments from the album to release as singles. "I didn't just cut random pieces from the album—that would've been unfair to the work. Instead, I took three musical motifs and developed them into standalone pieces. They're pure piano, between 3 and 5 minutes long, designed to be enjoyed independently. Those motifs also appear in the full album but are transformed—with strings, electronics, or a different pace and structure." 

About the first single 'To Hold the Sea Within' Dewit explains the following: "The song is named after the quiet Baltic Sea I witnessed years ago on a small beach at Öland, near Sweden. The Swedish evening sun colored the sea, which was as calm as a lake. The rhythmic motive that came to me at that moment, is at the heart of Holding the sea within. It's a composition with only a few chords, without melody and it hasn't really changed since I wrote it all these years ago. It has turned into the glue that holds together the entire album, as it is the beginning and the end. I'm very proud to present it as the first single."

The hope and warmth in the music are echoed in the album cover. Like Still and Here, the artwork was created by artist Bart Slangen. But while those covers featured dark, almost monochromatic autumnal imagery, this one glows with golden hues behind the trees. "As I was finishing the album, I sometimes wondered whether it still had a place in today's world: an album imbued with hope. Was it too naïve for the times we're living in? But in the end, I did what I always do: I followed the music. And I realized again that the final result is no longer mine—it's beyond my control. I've held onto it long enough. It's time to let go."
Wouter Dewit - Hold

Wouter Dewit Concert Dates
28/03/2025 - Klara Festival (Flagey), Ixelles
29/03/2025 (noon) - Cinema Roxy, Leuven
29/03/2025 (evening) - Piano Day (Abdij Van Herkenrode), Hasselt
31/03/2025 - Amor (De Roma), Antwerpen