Van Walker returns from his award winning album GHOSTING (2020) with HEALING DESCENT (2024), ten personally powerful songs written around the spring of the first major lockdown (2020).

Recorded in just four days during a break on a Canadian tour last year, Van took the opportunity to team up again with mate and multi-instrumentalist Chris Altmann to produce Healing Descent, out on Cheersquad Records & Tapes September 27, 2024.

‘Healing Descent’ is available on limited edition (100 only) opaque purple 12″ vinyl, black 12″ vinyl and digitally.

“That first spring of lockdown really packed a wallop after such a strange, dark time,” says Van. “The man-made world might have ground to a halt (due to the virus), but the natural world rolled on, and the very first day of spring was abuzz with colour and scents in bloom and insects going about their business. But most importantly: Promise. The real world was alive and completely oblivious to our troubles, and it was impossible not to be buoyed by that. Songs started pouring out celebrating that miracle.”

Feel good songs such as Persephone’s Return and Her Gentleness that sparkle with optimism.

“It was also a time of refuge from the ruin of the preceding period that bore my previous album, Ghosting. It felt as if I too had come full circle and survived, ready to go busily about my business once again. So there’s an undercurrent of that going on too. Ruin & Refuge. Death & Reanimation. There’s also songs on the album about those who didn’t survive that time (Certainty of Sand), and the heart wrenching darkness of the journey that isn’t a certainty.”

Fast forward a few years, a trip halfway around the world and a chance 4 day period off tour to record these songs in Canada with Carl Jennings & Chris Altmann, Van’s old mate and producer of past albums such as The Celestial Railroad (2008) and Bush League Bard (2010) who was like a touchstone between the past and present.

“Chris is like a musical mind-reader, he’s so talented and easy to work with, and he introduced me to Carl Jennings who also has the musical might and muscle, and a great studio in Hamilton, and the three of us just laid it down, bringing these songs alive, as did other friends and fam’ back home. Songs are like emotional mementos bursting with potential life, and with the right treatment, they’re proof positive of the seemingly unstoppable regeneration of the human spirit. They just need to be activated.”

“Van happened to be in town and so naturally I jumped at the chance to work with him again,” says producer Chris Altmann. “The first album I ever produced was his sprawling Celestial Railroad back in 2008 and we’ve had lots of fun working together over the years. I relocated to Canada some time ago so it was a great chance to introduce Van to Carl Jennings, a highly respected Hamilton musician and engineer at Westmoreland Studio. He was blown away by Van’s songs and voice. This new collection of songs are quite interesting compositions structurally, and sure enough they’re now all firmly stuck in my head!”

The working title of the record was Verdant One (meaning Green) a cyclic collection coursing with deep undercurrents of meaning and chthonic force, yet it wasn’t until the album was finished and the artwork compiled and being finalised that Van realised that all four seasons were mentioned in the songs:

“Opening track: Summer Thunder, then there’s Hades’ Lullaby (Autumn), Persephone’s Return (Spring), and, of course, Winter’s Last Words.

I didn’t even realise until it was pointed out to me!”

Healing Descent is an earthy yet effortless album of heartfelt material from an artist on the upswing, celebrating the upheaval of the past with an optimistic renewal of the spirit.