Jinte Deprez is an acclaimed singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, programmer and producer, best known as being one-half of the songwriting duo behind the acclaimed Belgian JOVM mainstays Balthazar. Over the course of their two-plus decade run together, the acclaimed Belgian outfit has played across the global festival circuit with sets at All Points East, British Summer Time, and others — while selling over 600,000 albums globally. And during that same period of time, Deprez has firmly cemented a reputation for being a wildly talented generalist: Along with his songwriting partner and bandmate Maarten Devoldere, Deprez has co-produced three of Balthazar’s five albums to date.
Deprez is also the creative mastermind behind the acclaimed solo recording project J. Bernardt, With J. Bernardt, Deprez has released two albums, 2016’s self-produced Running Days and 2024’s Tobie Speleman and Deprez co-produced Contigo. Recorded in Los Angeles-based 64 Sound Studio, the Paul Butler-produced “Four In The Morning” is a hazily euphoric and mischievously playful tune featuring sprawling and shimmering synths, driving and pulsing drums serving as a lush bed for the JOVM mainstay’s sultry delivery. But the euphoria and playfulness is a bit deceptive, and at its core, the song’s narrator has started to finding a moment of clarity about themselves and their lives. Whether they were drunk or sober isn’t said — and probably isn’t necessary.
To me it’s a summery song that evokes late nights, coming home and singing and dancing to your favorite song by yourself — often with no one watching. And if anyone was, you didn’t care.
The song reflects the evolution of J. Bernardt into a fully-fledged artistic universe with its own trajectory and ambitions. Deprez worked far away from familiar and long-held routines. Butler’s free-flowing approach in the studio encouraged spontaneity and led to Deprez’s most liberated and carefree vocal performance to date.
“The song caught my attention very quickly because it’s not the kind of song I would normally write,” Deprez explains, “It has this manic urge that made me think: ‘Is something calling out your name, man?’ So I went for it, probably because of the sense of rebirth it gave me. Why not? I wanted to feel reborn. And that’s how it happened: a dancer in his finest suit wandering through LA at four in the morning. I hope it ends well for him.”
