Nils De Caster
Nils De Caster is a Belgian singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who plays fiddle, lap steel, mandolin and guitar. He has worked on dozens of Belgian records as a sideman and producer since about 1990, played fiddle and mandolin in the Broken Circle Breakdown Bluegrass Band, and records and performs with the singer Sara De Smedt.
His recorded work begins with the Pink Flowers, on April Showers (1990) and the soundtrack Blind Man’s Son (1993). Through the 1990s and 2000s he played on records by Elliott Murphy (Beauregard, 1998), H. T. Roberts, Lieven Tavernier, Johan Verminnen, Wim De Wulf and Urbanus, and he was a member of the groups Het Gespuis and De Zondaars. He made duo albums with Yves Meersschaert (Citron Bleu, 2006) and Bruno Deneckere (Live, 2012), produced records by Miek en Roel, Wim De Wulf and Deneckere, and produced Lieven Tavernier with De Zondaars’ Live in Gent (2017), on which he also plays lap steel and violin.
For Felix Van Groeningen’s 2012 film The Broken Circle Breakdown he joined the band assembled by the composer Bjorn Eriksson, singing and playing fiddle and mandolin on the soundtrack album (Universal Music Belgium, 2012) behind the actors Veerle Baetens and Johan Heldenbergh. When the band went on tour he played fiddle and mandolin and sang on the live album Unbroken! Live in Concert (2014).
With Richard Bargel and Roland Van Campenhout he recorded Just Another Place in the Universe… (2015) and Frankie & Johnny (2016), and he later played in the Guy Verlinde Trio. With Sara De Smedt he released It Takes a Believer (Lie Records, 2020) and Take This Stone (Lie Records, 2023), singing lead and playing acoustic guitar, mandolin and lap steel, writing songs and producing and mixing the album. As of November 2026 the two also lead the six-piece band TumbleJack.
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The Broken Circle Breakdown Bluegrass BandPlayed on recordings with The Broken Circle Breakdown Bluegrass Band
