His death was confirmed by manager Trey Reames, who posted the following statement:
"On behalf of the family and as his manager I must announce that Martijn Teerlinck, aka Cole Williams, aka The Child of Lov, aka Sun Patzer, is no longer with us.
"He lived a life of struggle and can now rest peacefully. In his own words: 'When I was younger, I had a tough time physically. I have seen too many hospital beds.
"It made me stronger. Makes you realize death is always near, for anyone. And what a wonderful thing life is and how grateful we should be.'“
The Child of Lov worked with Doom and Damon Albarn in the process of creating his self-titled debut album, released in June 2013 on Double Six Records. Upon winning the NME Philip Hall Radar Award, he simply responded with "Thank you very much.", emulating his hero, Prince, from the 1986 AMAs.
For a man so addicted to a perfect image, and a man so talented at creating it, a single album doesn't seem like enough. We can only hope that there was more audible art waiting in the wings. He'll be sorely missed. He was 26.
'air’ by Martijn Teerlinck (March 31st, 1987 - December 10th, 2013)
all air is bated breath of the world
which is slowly choking
but people have fig leaf faces
and they run carefree in their ages
people swallow everything without wind: earth and flesh
It stinks inside their cloches
and I, though I am dunbevleugeld
and though I have a body of wires
if I had still had lungs
I want to give them to the world
but I have empty droplets
hanging to dry in my chest
therefore I breathe softly, voice together
and I leave the world to blow in me