Treasure Keepers

"Treasure Keepers" is the first real solo album by singer songwriter Ad Vanderveen. Performed alone in a studio and theater ambience with no audience, it features 9½ new original songs and 1½ covers in a sparse, yet varied instrumentation. The content and poetry are of a personal, spiritual, topical nature and are kept center stage, framed by sounds ranging from airy acoustic to grungy electric.

Starting off with a dedication to colleague, friend and mentor David Olney, who recently passed away, Vanderveen’s songs address subjects like life and death, creativity, change and pandemic times, as well as love transcending, all of these in some more meditative pieces. The disc ends with 'Motherland', a grungy electric rendition of the Dutch national anthem, with Vanderveen’s own lyrics taking it to a more universal and spiritual plane. The other cover on "Treasure Keepers" is ‘If I Can Do It So Can You’ by Lee Clayton, a song Ad claims had a life changing impact on him in the late 1970s.

While the performances are spontaneous and minimal, the soundscape is intricate and has been realized with the help of the finest of people and equipment available in the field of audio. Ad Vanderveen about "Treasure Keepers": "I’ve often heard myself say ‘a song should be able to stand on its own 2 feet, but I’d never really made a record like that. It was time to practise what I preach, one shot on the spot with no overdubs, a bold and daring choice if I do say so myself, and if a song wouldn’t stand up to it, it simply wouldn’t come to life. It took a sense of ruthless vulnerability to present my new material in this way that turned out feeling very rewarding”.

"Treasure Keepers" will be released in August 2020 by Continental Europe.