Today Wouter Dewit proudly presents his new album called 'Hold'. A remarkable record because Dewit challenged himself—and his audience—by recording a single, 50-minute piece. An album with a single track, split into two 25-minute parts for vinyl, is hardly a conventional commercial move, Dewit acknowledges. “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. When the vinyl format split it into two parts, it turned out to work surprisingly well, I enjoy those kinds of serendipities.”
Hold also marks the conclusion of a trilogy, following 'Still' (2017) and 'Here' (2019). A fun fact: both Still and Here also run exactly 50 minutes.
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.”
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.”