When words become music.
Phoenix Journey began with words.
Writing, looking back, trying to understand and, eventually, sharing my story.
But some things are difficult to explain completely.
Sometimes music can reach something that words alone cannot fully express.
That is how Phénix V was born.
Not as a separate project alongside Phoenix Journey, but as another form of the same journey.
Phoenix Journey tries to put into words what I have lived through.
Phénix V tries to let you hear what it felt like.
Music was always there
Music has always held a special place in my life.
Certain songs became connected to particular moments, people or periods. Sometimes a song could express exactly what I was not yet able to put into words myself.
That is why music was already present in Phoenix Journey long before Phénix V.
Songs by Slimane held a particular place within it:
- La Chanson des Vieux Amants – Slimane
- Des milliers de je t’aime – Slimane
- And there were others.
They were still someone else’s songs, but they already showed how closely music and my own story could become intertwined.
Then something changed.
I began to discover that my own words could become music too.
From words to my own music
It began with texts.
Thoughts and experiences that were originally meant to be written sometimes began to take on a different rhythm.
A sentence became a chorus.
An emotion found a melody.
And what had first been only a piece of writing began to sound like a song.
With the help of new technology, I was able to shape those ideas further and experiment with music in a way that would not have been possible for me before.
Technology, including artificial intelligence, is a tool within that process.
The experiences, the words, the choices and the direction remain mine.
Why French?
The first songs by Phénix V are in French.
That was not a strategic decision.
It happened naturally.
French music had already held a place within Phoenix Journey for a long time, and certain songs had become deeply connected to my own story.
When I began hearing my own words in French, I also noticed that the language did something different with them.
Some emotions sounded softer.
Others more intense.
French gave the music a form that felt right at that moment.
That does not mean Phénix V will always remain exclusively French-language.
The music is allowed to evolve, just as Phoenix Journey itself continues to evolve.
Why Phénix V?
The phoenix has been at the heart of Phoenix Journey from the beginning.
Not as a symbol of a perfect new beginning, but of rising again after something has changed, broken or disappeared.
It is not about returning to who you were before.
It is about moving forward as someone who has been changed by what happened.
For the music, Phoenix therefore became Phénix — the French form of the same name.
The V refers first and foremost to my surname: Verloo.
But a letter does not necessarily need to have only one meaning.
In French, that V can also evoke vie and victoire.
Life and victory.
Not as an endpoint, but as movement.
Who is Phénix V?
Phénix V is not a fictional character.
I am not hiding behind an artist name.
It is still my story, my words and my experiences.
The name simply distinguishes between two ways of telling the same story.
Wim Verloo writes Phoenix Journey.
Phénix V turns it into music.
The music
The songs of Phénix V come from the same place as the texts on Phoenix Journey.
Some begin directly from an experience.
Others from a memory, an insight or an emotion that stayed with me.
Each song tells only one part of the story.
Together, they become another part of the same journey.
New music will be added here as it is released.