Weval

When a Schweppes commercial directed by Kathryn Bigelow sent the track "Detian" to number five on France's iTunes electronic chart, Harm Coolen and Merijn Scholte Albers had barely existed as a duo for a year. The two had met in 2010 while working in the Dutch film industry. Coolen brought house and jazz instincts; Scholte Albers leaned toward trip-hop. They started making music together around 2012, and by March 2013 their debut EP, Half Age, was out on Amsterdam label Atomnation. That early spark of attention from the Schweppes sync was an anomaly for a project still finding its voice, but it hinted at how immediately physical their productions could feel.

Cologne's Kompakt Records signed Weval in 2014. The Easier EP arrived that year, followed by It'll Be Just Fine / Grow Up in 2015. Both records sharpened the duo's identity: layered synthesizers, hypnotic rhythms, and vocals treated as texture rather than centerpiece. Their self-titled debut album landed in June 2016 and drew an 8.0 from Pitchfork, which called it "the rare electronic record that is so strong and obviously appealing that it can't help but end up in the hands of casual listeners." The album appeared on numerous year-end lists and established Weval as one of the more distinctive acts in Kompakt's roster.

The Weight, their second album, followed in 2019 and pushed further from the dancefloor. Produced with sound engineer David Wrench, it pulled in threads of IDM, psych-pop, funk, and ambience. Critics noted echoes of Boards of Canada in tracks like "Are You Even Real." The record confirmed that Weval's palette was wider than any single genre tag could hold.

A label shift accompanied their third album. Remember appeared in March 2023 on Ninja Tune's Technicolour imprint, preceded by "Never Stay For Love," a collaboration with Dutch singer-songwriter Eefje de Visser that originated during a weekend songwriting retreat in 2020. The album leaned into higher energy and more spontaneous arrangements, mashing together pop, dance, and ambient elements with less regard for tidy boundaries.

Their fourth record, Chorophobia, arrived in September 2025 on Technicolour. The title refers to a fear of dancing, something both members say they dealt with when younger. The album leans into big drops, faster tempos, and an increased density of hi-hats. Neither Coolen nor Scholte Albers had formal musical training, and they have cited intuition as their primary compositional tool, a constraint they consider an advantage rather than a limitation.

Live, Weval expanded from a studio duo into a five-piece band. They have played Primavera, Pukkelpop, Lowlands, Nuits Sonores, Rock en Seine, DGTL Amsterdam, and Lightning in a Bottle, among others. In October 2019, they performed in the main hall of Amsterdam's Het Concertgebouw during Amsterdam Dance Event. They have sold out both the Concertgebouw and Paradiso in their home city.