There will be a gap of exactly a year between the anniversary year ‘25 Years of Yevgueni’ and the next planned Yevgueni album. 2026 also happens to be the year in which frontman and songwriter Klaas Delrue turns fifty. And – partly due to that milestone – it is also a year in which he wants to once again be heard as a solo artist.

His solo album Tijd voor mij will be released in March 2026. A ‘small album’ on which Klaas very expressly puts the singer-songwriter and bedroom singer in himself at the forefront. Think: intimate, fragile, delicate songs such as can be heard here and there on a Yevgueni album or at a show. But then this time recorded, played and performed solo. An album expertly and soberly produced by Willem Ardui.

Both the album and the performances will be honest, moving and straightforward. This time (unlike his previous solo adventure in 2014) Klaas has opted for Dutch. For the simple reason that he wanted this album to be as personal as possible. Tijd voor mij could be understood as just that: time for me. But also as a very scarce commodity for the father of now nine- and seven-year-old daughters.

After the great happiness of 2016 (that, to be clear, continues to this day), fatherhood came along with a search for balance, for (time for) himself, but also for a place to write, for balance between the life of an artist and one at the school gate. And, along the way, a pandemic as well. More than enough material for ten songs that don’t need more than a voice, a guitar and a few embellishments.
 
Anyone who has ever seen or heard it knows that it works. And that it will be something special. On the cover, a seventeen-year-old Klaas look right at you, half serous, half smiling. A seventeen-year-old who learned his first three chords a few months earlier on his older brother’s abandoned guitars. From then on, never really planning to be anything other than a musician.