HALEY HEYNDERICKX - What Of Our Nature

Seven years after their first collaboration on the EP "Among Horses III", Haley Heynderickx and Max Garcia Conover reunite for a project that revives the social and political commitment of Woody Guthrie.

The spirit here is quite different from the many albums that have revisited or dusted off Guthrie's work using notes he never got round to finishing. The two songwriters instead speak to the present day, placing themes like inequality, poverty and the exploitation of workers at the heart of their songs: unresolved question marks hanging over a civilization - the American one - that remain sadly current.

The apparent contrast between Max Garcia Conover's rough-edged tone and Haley Heynderickx's more melancholy one serves an album in which love for one's own land is in constant conflict with a bleak social and political reality. It's an essential, stripped-back kind of folk that the American duo (Haley hails from Portland, Oregon, Max from Portland, Maine) deal in: just a few guitar chords, a fragile fingerpicking style stitching together its raw beauty, and a percussive backbone entrusted to the hands of Sahil Ansary, by turns light and forceful.

The album was recorded in a barn in Vermont, cut live to tape. It's no surprise, then, that the militant scowl of "Song For Alicia", inspired by the revolutionary Puerto Rican activist Alicia Rodríguez, and the more mournful protest of "In Bulosan's Words", dedicated to the Filipino-American poet Carlos Bulosan, seem to belong to another era altogether.

With "What Of Our Nature" the two musicians not only reclaim the most genuine themes of American folk ("Cowboying", "This Morning I Am Born Again"), but with the same ethical and social rigour also tackle modern issues such as technology ("Fluorescent Light") and rampant consumerism ("To Each Their Dot"), adding more contemporary indie-folk shadings in the vein of Adrianne Lenker.

“What Of Our Nature” is a precious confirmation for Haley Heynderickx's fans, but it's also the perfect opportunity to dig deeper into the figure of Max Garcia Conover. What's certain is that we badly need records like this: the history of music isn't made up solely of masterpieces and seminal albums, but also of works with deep integrity and artistic coherence.

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09/03/2026