VANDAVEER - Dig Down Deep

“So, there's this guy… his name is Mark, but his friends call him Charles. He writes songs that sometimes sound folk, sometimes pop, rock or smooth jazz, but mostly folk. And then there's this girl. Her name is Rose and she sings like an angel. That's about it, more or less.” With this simple, unassuming self-portrait, Mark Charles Heidinger returns to the scene for the third chapter of the Vandaveer project. A project that has by now become a stable, fully-fledged duo, in which the voice of the American songwriter lets itself be lovingly wrapped by the counter-melody of blonde Rose Guerin. “Dig Down Deep” digs right down to the essence of Heidinger's songwriting, continuing along the same path as the previous “Divide & Conquer”: a simple, personal pulse of songs that, album after album, grows richer with the perspective of an intimate maturity.

It announces itself with the vibrant tone of an anthem, “Dig Down Deep”. An anthem for those who refuse to resign themselves to fighting the daily battle without a purpose. The light rhythmic bed of “Concerning Past & Future Conquests” recalls the atmospheres of “Grace & Speed”, loading them up with enveloping strings and emphatic flourishes. The plainspoken songwriting of Josh Ritter (“AOK”) coexists with the chamber-drama of Decemberists (“Spite”). Lightening the mood, meanwhile, are the pop moves in the style of Marc Bolan (though recast in an indie-folk key) on “The Nature Of Our Kind”: “a little number,” in Heidinger's own words, “about continuing to spin around at blistering speed, whether we're aware of it or not.”

Despite a few too many simplifications, it's once again in the chiaroscuro tones that Vandaveer's soul hides: the dreamy piano phrasing drapes "As A Matter Of Fact" in theatrical velvet, while "The Great Gray" sketches a dirge-like march streaked with interference. "I love music that goes into the dark side of things: Nick Cave, that kind of stuff".

The songs' direct approach picks up where the home-recorded Ep “A Minor Spell” left off, which had preceded the album's release by a few months. But on “Dig Down Deep” the trusted hand of producer Duane Lundy enriches the contours with detail: “we turned my house into a studio for a few weeks, using every room to get different sounds. Bathroom, kitchen, living room, closets, under the stairs, we used everything…” Thus, the closing “The Waking Hour” sets aside the acoustic liveliness of the version found on “A Minor Spell” to stretch out until it rests suspended on just Mark and Rose's voices alone: “We stood stone still at the base of a mighty case of stairs / Stared straight up, searched for signs, such a steep affair”.

Amid the punctuation marks of “Beat, Beat, My Heart”, the grayness of a domesticated existence is set against the color palette of hope: “I'll wager my fate for a glimpse of Technicolor love / Oh, enough with all these grays”. What is hope, after all, if not the possibility of turning yesterday's colors into something new, the possibility of starting over again every day? And the chorus becomes a whisper, in the closing lines of “Dig Down Deep”: “By the grace of God, we can start again”.

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28/04/2011