VanWyck - God is In The Detour (2020)

Born in Rotterdam, her early years spent in Indonesia and New Zealand, and now based in Amsterdam, after various band incarnations, accompanied mostly by Reyer Zwart on guitars, double bass, lap steel and piano, God Is In The Detour is the third solo release by Christine Oele under her performing persona of VanWyck, taken from her grandmother’s maiden name. They are, she says, “direct and uncomplicated” and mostly acoustic songs, many part of her live set but never recorded, about what happens when things don’t go according to plan but turn out to have very positive outcomes.

It opens with the whimsically playful title track, a speak-sing number evocative of Suzanne Vega, where she sings about meeting a bored God (female, obviously) in a corner shop buying tea and going coffee together, God evidently pleased as she says “How lovely, nowadays most people are in a hurry. They have lists and plans and stuff they need to do and don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to be said for having a plan, there’s a lot to be gained from acting fast, there’s a whole lot of sense in being direct. But then again, the good stuff seems to happen when you’re on a detour”.

Your Favorite Song has a bittersweet backstory involving a friend who died six weeks after being diagnosed with a brain tumour, leaving behind her girlfriend and two teenage daughters, the number, another simple melodic strum, being written for and about her. The following two numbers adopt the same simple arrangement, I Wish You Well a song about being given the elbow (“It sure sounds funny/When you say it out loud/How you really don’t want me”) but wishing them well and saying you’ll leave a light on if they ever want to find their way back. The Garbagemen, which is about basically about casting off the everyday chains, is more of a sketch (“The light is red/The rain is soft/The pavement shines/Above the tram /Neon lights/Flicker out”) but with a brush of the poetic as “The garbagemen pick up their cans/And trust their worried whispers to the wind/She picks them up /With gentle hands/And sets them free”.

A solo piano number, and presumably set around Christmas, This Time That Time is a lovely song about renewing relationships that have fallen by the wayside through fear of commitment with the determination that “This time I won’t give up/This time I won’t run off /This time I’ll know just what to say/I won’t back away, I will keep it up/This time I won’t say no/This time I won’t let go/This time I’ll be all that you need”.

The first to bring strings to the mix, adorned by Laura van der Stoep’s viola As Yours Turns Into Mine is a lyrically sensual love song (“I breathe in your skin from the hollow/Where your neck begins/I leave my lips to linger on/Your collarbone/Raise my hands above your spine /Trace my fingers down/Along the edge of where we start/And weld us into one”) that seduces as you listen.

It ends with two tracks, the first, accompanied by just her piano, is the spare torch ballad We Do Not Speak, a meditative number about the awkward silence in the aftermath of a moment of crisis, “Of what we cannot speak we do not speak/Of all the wounds that are too deep”, but how they are buried beneath the love shared and promises kept as she sings contemplatively “Was I guilty, was I innocent/Was I a witness or a thief/Did I steal your dirty memories/Did I cleanse them with my grief”.

And, finally, there’s Ballad of the Quiet Citizen on which VanWyck channels Edith Piaf as she sings in the voice of those from whatever ethnic or religious background unjustly condemned by the actions of others (“I did not blow up any buildings/I did not wage no phoney wars/I did not ask for admiration/Or drew attention to my words”) as they refuse to be beaten down into fear in the stirring affirmation that “I stand with the many/And our whispers will begin/To fill up your voids /And to rise over your walls/One by one we will join/Our hands across your borders/Two by two we’ll undo/The lies that you have made up/To divide us”. In a world that seems to be seeking to drive people apart, it’s an uplifting reminder that “Your hate it shouts/But love speaks louder still”.

A call to take the road less travelled and wonder at the scenery and destinations it can bring us, this is one of those consistently rewarding albums that make your musical detour into perhaps new and previously unknown territory well worthwhile.