Angèle / Sony Music
Angèle released her third album, ‘Instinct,’ on October 16 via Angèle VL Records and Sony Music. It’s the Belgian singer’s first full-length since 2021’s ‘Nonante-Cinq,’ and it marks a real shift: the 13 tracks lean into an electronic sound that the two singles released ahead of the album, including ‘Une seule vie,’ had already hinted at.
The album was announced over the summer through a cryptic puzzle posted on social media, which fans decoded within hours. Angèle framed the new project as a way back to a more instinctive kind of songwriting, away from the pressure of repeating the formula that made her first two albums massive hits.
Guests that pull the record toward electro
The guest list confirms the turn. French electronic duo Justice co-write ‘What You Want,’ Belgian group Soulwax shape ‘Trop,’ while American singer-producer Caroline Polachek and French producer SebastiAn appear together on ‘Love Triangle.’ Those choices pull Angèle away from the acoustic-leaning pop of her early work and toward club-ready, synth-driven production.
The artwork tells the same story. It references a lithograph by Dutch artist M.C. Escher showing a hand holding a reflective sphere. Shot with photographer Grant James Thomas, the image folds in personal details within its reflection — pianos, her previous album covers, her dog Pépette — compressing her whole career into a single object.
‘Une seule vie,’ a lead single shot on film
Ahead of the album, Angèle unveiled the video for ‘Une seule vie’ in late August, the third single pulled from ‘Instinct.’ Directed by Thomas Mailaender and shot entirely on 16mm film in the south of France, the clip leans on analogue tricks, slow motion and mirror effects to illustrate the song’s central idea: the urgency of living fully, since there may only be one life to do it in.
The single quickly climbed into the top five of digital sales charts on release, confirming the anticipation that had been building around the album since it was first announced in the spring.
A tour reaching into North America
- ‘Instinct,’ Angèle’s third studio album, 13 tracks, released October 16 (Angèle VL Records / Sony Music).
- Guests: Justice, Soulwax, Caroline Polachek and SebastiAn.
- Lead single: ‘Une seule vie,’ with a video shot on 16mm by Thomas Mailaender.
- An ‘Instinct Tour’ has been announced, with North American dates in April 2027, including Montréal, New York and Los Angeles.
With this third album, Angèle clearly shifts register without abandoning what built her audience in the first place: direct, French-language songwriting, now carried by bigger, more electronic production. Whether that shift wins over listeners used to her earlier, stripped-down pop is still an open question — one the tour starting next year will begin to answer on stage.
The guest list is also a reminder that Angèle’s audience now extends well past French-speaking markets. Pairing a francophone pop star with an American art-pop figure like Caroline Polachek, on a track co-produced by SebastiAn, places ‘Instinct’ inside a wider conversation happening in English-language pop and electronic music, not just in the French scene she emerged from nearly a decade ago. It’s a pattern that fits an artist who has spent the past few years playing increasingly large rooms outside France and Belgium, and who now has a North American leg of her tour to prove the album travels as well live as it does in the studio.
