God Is In The Detour. VanWyck

In a comment on the 'Musicmeter' website under Reb Fountain's latest album someone tipped to listen to God Is In The Detour by Dutch singer VanWyck. It only took a few minutes of listening for me to realise that the reference made was totally right. Another cd will enter the home soon.

VanWyck is singer Christine Oerle. She released one EP and two albums since 2015. With God Is In The Detour she released a new eight song album with four "Covid" songs and four old, remastered songs. For me this album is the maiden one. It is the kind of album that impresses immediately for two reasons. The presence of VanWyck's voice and the quality of the songs. There already is a Reb Fountain. Had this been different VanWyck would just have invented her. Beside the fact that I, perhaps, never would have heard of VanWyck without Reb Fontain of course.

God Is In The Detour is an album to fully listen to. To submerge into. The songs are all soft spoken, dramatic without any fuzz but omnipresent. An album to totally get wrong because of the unobtrusive nature of the music. The quality lies for a part in the details. At times small details but defining for the mood and texture.

The title song is a story about meeting God in a corner supermarket. Just listen to it as it plays out beautifully. The music is all subtlety and restraint. Making the song more impressive. Yes, I know, Suzanne Vega, could have sung this. Who cares when a song is this good? I don't. It shows that VanWyck is excelling in between folk, singer-songwriter and country. That she needs only very little around her musically to capture me fully, completely.

With that we come to the strength of VanWyck as performer. Like Reb Fountain she hardly needs any music to grab my attention. That doesn't mean I write off the music on both albums as redundant, far from, as it is beautiful. No, it means that the two voices are so strong that they are the centre of my universe for a short while. Soft-spoken yet so forceful. For some reason I cannot give you another example of female singers that have this effect on me. For male colleagues, only Marty Balin comes to mind, e.g. in 'Today', 'Coming Back To Me' and 'Miracles' (Jefferson Airplane/Starship).

I apologise a little to VanWyck to keep mentioning another singer so often, but I need it to make the effect God Is In The Detour has on me as clear as I can. This album goes straight into the heart and mind. No filter left. That simply doesn't happen that often. I can't give a greater compliment.

Wo.

You can listen to and order God Is In The Detour here:

https://vanwyck.bandcamp.com/album/god-is-in-the-detour

or listen to our Spotify Playlist to find out what we are writing about:

https://open.spotify.com/user/glazu53/playlist/6R9FgPd2btrMuMaIrYeCh6?si=KI6LzLaAS5K-wsez5oSO2g