Durand Bernarr has officially released his new EP En Route, which was first made available on EVEN, a direct-to-fan music platform.
For 25 minutes, Bernarr takes the wheel, inviting listeners to join him on a joyous musical escapade. En Route is best enjoyed simply by allowing the project to cruise without skipping around tracks. The eight-track EP is pumped with an assortment of genres, all while keeping R&B at its core.
The Latin-flavored “GPS” is among the highlights of En Route. In true Durand Bernarr fashion, the singer adds a little dose of comedy at the beginning as he rants off perplexing directions to get to the final destination. While Bernarr may be a jokester, he certainly isn’t playing around vocally, flexing his mult-octave range over sunny instrumentation as he drops gems on how to approach a woman.
“Just so you know I set the tone, I’m the example / The standard of how she should be handled / You won’t be the only man in her life / Too late, she already knows that a right feels like / If you want a good impression / I will give you some direction,” Bernarr sings.
En Route also includes the previously shared singles “Unknown” and “Fist Bump” featuring Free Nationals.
“En Route is the by-product of my experiences and evolution as both a person and an artist. It’s me expressing exactly how I feel, what I need, and how I want to be treated,” Bernarr says about the project, which he recorded in five days at Spotify’s Coke Studio in Los Angeles.
He adds, “While narrating these stories, I wanted to incorporate the eras, genres, cultures, instruments, and music legends that inspire me. And what did I say would happen when I finally got some music video money?”
Speaking of videos, Bernarr has released a visual edition of En Route, which can be watched below.
En Route is the follow-up to Bernarr’s 2022 album, Wanderlust. He supported his second album on his headlining Wanderland Tour, which was extended in 2023 as My Bad for Taking So Long: The Wanderlust Tour Continues. The second leg of the tour began after Bernarr’s viral Tiny Desk performance.
Stream Durand Bernarr’s new EP En Route below.