DR: The new song is upbeat and funky. Why the change?

DB: The last EP we did, “The World Is A Mess”, was made at Abbey Road Studios. It was so expensive I couldn’t afford to have the whole band there, so I wrote six acoustic songs without drums that we could get done in two days. So now we have a new album recorded with the full band, which has different kind of energy. I have the feeling I need to push myself in new directions. Some newer bands have one trick that they cling to, but in my music I want to express the whole range of human existence. I get tired when I listen to stuff that stay in the same range.

DR: In the studio do you work with the band as a collaborative effort?

DB: I’ve been learning on the go. When I made my first two albums I took my musician friends and I was showing them how to play drums and bass; and I am not a drummer or bass player. I wanted it to sound a particular way. But after that we became a real band and I realised that when I let people do what they really can do it gets better and less sterile, the music starts to live. With this album we recorded almost everything live in five, six, seven or eight takes--which is something we have never done before. It was really fun to do, because nobody was bored waiting for his turn to play. I booked the studio for ten days, but we were finished in eight days.

DR: Was it your first time recording in the Wisserloord studio in the Netherlands?

DB: Yes, I always try to find a new studio to inspire us. I was looking at one studio in Norway, which was far off on an island but it didn’t offer any possibility to escape--so if you’re stuck with the band you’re really stuck. Maybe next time when I do some solo stuff again. The Wisserloord studio is amazing. I have never seen so much equipment…they have so many instruments just standing there waiting for you.

Daniel Balthasar’s new album “Presence of Absence” will be released at the end of March 2017.