Belgian Superstar Angèle Embraces Creative Freedom on 'Instinct'
By Stevie Connor | The Sound Cafe Journal
A BILINGUAL RECORD FEATURING JUSTICE, SOULWAX, CAROLINE POLACHEK AND SEBASTIAN
Belgian singer-songwriter and producer Angèle has built an international career by balancing pop’s immediate appeal with a distinctive sense of personality. With Instinct, her third studio album, she turns inward, exploring the complicated relationship between independence, collaboration and the people who shape us. The result marks a move towards darker electronic textures and dance-floor energy, while retaining space for more reflective moments.
Released on October 16, 2026, through GGL Records and Sony Music, Instinct follows the success of Brol (2018) and Nonante-Cinq (2021), records that helped establish Angèle as one of Belgium’s most recognisable contemporary pop artists. Since her breakthrough with “La Loi de Murphy” in 2017, she has developed a career that reaches well beyond her home country while retaining a strong sense of personal identity.
For this album, Angèle challenged herself to work without the safety net of an established formula. She spent months at home writing, composing and producing the songs herself before inviting other musicians and writers into the process. That distinction matters.
Creative independence, in this case, was not about shutting out other voices; it was about first discovering what she wanted to say, then finding the right people to help bring it to life.
Longtime creative ally Tristan Salvati remains central to that process. A friend, songwriter and co-producer, he serves as a trusted creative presence, while the wider circle of collaborators introduces fresh perspectives. Justice join Angèle on “What You Want”, and Belgian electronic duo Soulwax contribute to the club-driven “Trop”. Caroline Polachek lends her voice to “Love Triangle”, which also features SebastiAn, while British songwriter and producer Oscar Scheller co-wrote “f4ck 4ever” with Angèle during a session in New York’s Greenpoint neighbourhood.
The collaborations reflect an artist willing to move beyond familiar pop boundaries. The album’s electronic and dance-oriented direction draws on club culture and the French Touch tradition, with a darker edge than a simple celebration of the dance floor might suggest. Across the record, the energy of big beats and synthesised textures sits alongside songs that turn towards uncertainty, intimacy and emotional conflict. The contrast gives the album room to move between physical momentum and more vulnerable reflection.
That tension comes into sharper focus on “Au Revoir”, which emerged from Angèle’s first collective songwriting session, with Elvira Anderfjärd, Luka Kloser and Oscar Holter. The song considers the difficulty of leaving behind relationships that no longer serve us, even when emotional attachment makes that separation hard. Angèle has described it as a farewell to emotional dependency, a theme that gives the album’s broader interest in independence a more personal dimension. Knowing your own mind is one thing; learning not to surrender it to someone else is another.
The recording process also played an important role in shaping the album. Sessions took place at ICP Studios in Brussels, La Fabrique in the south of France and Electric Lady Studios in New York, alongside work in apartments converted into home studios. Angèle’s surroundings became part of the recordings: the sound of a New York ambulance in the breakup ballad “On verra”, for example, and fragments of conversations between friends in the closing track, “NYC Blues”.
These details offer glimpses of a process that did not depend exclusively on the formality of the recording studio. The everyday world found its way into the work, giving the album an additional sense of place. New York, where Angèle developed her English, has become more than a temporary refuge; it is also a creative influence.
The album’s personal focus extends into family, politics and the uncertainty of contemporary life. On “Je sais”, Angèle addresses her father, Marka. The intimate and the political meet again in “Trop”, described by Sony Music as a sentimental protest song, while “Une seule vie” considers a broader moral crisis. The concerns connect with an earlier chapter of her career, particularly the feminist anthem “Balance ton quoi”, while suggesting that her interest in social questions continues to evolve.
For Angèle, instinct is not necessarily a simple matter of following an impulse. Across Instinct, it seems closer to learning which instincts to trust, how to recognise the influence of other people and when to step away from expectations that no longer fit. The music’s movement between electronic intensity and emotional vulnerability provides a fitting setting for those questions.
The visual presentation is another part of the project. Angèle partnered with (LA)HORDE, the choreographic collective known for its work across contemporary dance and major music productions, to oversee the visual direction. The project was conceived as a wider experience in which music, images and movement inform one another. The cover photograph is by Grant James-Thomas, extending the album’s identity beyond the recordings themselves.
Angèle’s international reach has continued to grow. Sony Music reports close to four billion streams globally. She has recorded with Dua Lipa and performed “Nightcall” with Phoenix and Kavinsky at the closing ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Alongside her musical career, she serves as a Global Ambassador for Chanel and has a partnership with Adidas. These achievements demonstrate the scale of her public profile, but the more revealing story on Instinct is how she continues to shape her own artistic direction within that success.
The Instinct Tour is scheduled to begin in Europe in March 2027, with dates including Reims on March 3 and five performances at Paris’s Accor Arena on March 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13. The itinerary then moves to Brussels, Montreal, New York, Los Angeles, Barcelona, London, Berlin, Cologne and Amsterdam, followed by further European dates in the autumn. The schedule includes performances in Strasbourg, Lille, Amnéville, Nantes, Montpellier, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon-Décines and Lausanne. Dates and venues should be checked against the official tour listing before publication.
For a Belgian artist whose audience now extends across continents, Instinct arrives at a point when creative independence means more than working alone. It means knowing which voices to welcome, which ideas deserve room to grow and which parts of yourself must remain at the centre of the work.
That is the balance Angèle is exploring here: not independence as isolation, but the confidence to collaborate without losing sight of her own direction.
The Sound Cafe Journal
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