Rochelle Hubsch and Darren Digby have bought their plane tickets for New York, where they plan to collaborate with producer Kieran Kelly in creating their first album.
They contacted him a month ago after hearing his production magic on Angus and Julia Stone’s album ‘Down the Way’, after which he agreed to work with them.
‘We considered Kieran coming to South Africa, but we settled on New York because of the better resources that will be available to us there,’ says Darren. ‘This recording is very important, as your first album is your first impression.’A producer himself, Darren hopes to learn much from watching Mr Kelly at work.
‘Everything is falling into place, amazingly!’ Rochelle says. ‘I’ve had dreams since forever, but they always seemed like dreams.’ ‘Then again, I’m a feisty one,’ she adds, laughing.
Eastern Cape’s Rochelle and Darren have only been playing together as DieselVanilla for the last 11 months. Rochelle’s honey-suckle voice combined with Darren’s guitar strumming and harmonising make for a unique and moving performance.
They both drew musical inspiration from the emotional realm and all their songs are spiritual in a way can be heard and understood by most audiences.
‘I think we allow our listeners to breathe through the venerability in our music.’ Rochelle explains. ‘We definitely are very selective about where we choose to have our gigs. We enjoy intimate theatres and small venues – we want an audience that can truly focus on the music.’
Both times I saw DieselVanilla play at Pincushion Cottage, Scarborough, everyone present sat silent and completely transfixed as these ‘narrative melancholic story-tellers’ put us under their spell.The couple’s wistful sound has echoes of Damien Rice – a big musical influence – and their lyrics about love and hope are bound to trigger nostalgia in even the toughest of listeners.
These musicians also enjoy a relationship of the more romantic kind, and this intimacy comes through nicely in their music.While Rochelle is the ‘Alice in Wonderland’, Darren is the more practical one. To spend time together, they weed the garden.
When they release the album, it will be under the name ‘Digby Roochy’, a combination of Darren’s last name and Rochelle’s nickname.
Upcoming shows:
DieselVanilla will be playing at the Red Gallery in Tokai on the 10 Sept.Follow them on Facebook
Words: Rachel Briant
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