Four years in the making, recorded at Double V Record Studio in St. Gallen, this is Van Vernon's most personal record yet — ten songs moving between indie rock, folk, and alternative, never settling for one mood when three will do.
The album opens with intimacy and closes with departure, and in between it doesn't shy away from taking sides. "King of Rodeo" and "Ride on" are sharp and unflinching, political in the way only a songwriter with something to lose can be, while "The Power of Beauty" turns inward, trading anger for a quiet, searching philosophy. "Seven Days" and "Counting on You" pull things back into the personal — love, and the fragile trust it asks of us — before "Fluke" and the title track close it all out on something more autobiographical, tinged with the particular ache of moving on.
Lukas Stalder's electric and lapsteel guitar threads through the arrangements, Remo Borner's drums (tracked with Serge Christen at MAZZIVE Sound Production) give the songs their backbone, and everything else — instruments, production, mixing — comes from Van Vernon himself. Mastered by Felix Davis at Metropolis Studios, London.
But once a song is released, it's no longer his. It becomes yours. A line might remind you of someone. A song might land exactly where you are right now. You might hear something completely different than what was meant — and that's exactly how it should be.
The cover shows Hamburg's main railway station, where arrivals and departures happen side by side, every day, without ceremony. A fitting image for an album about love, faith, politics, and memory — places we all pass through. Welcome & Goodbye doesn't hand you a conclusion. It just opens the door. Make it your own story.
Tracklist: Seven Days · Ride on · Life is sweet · King of Rodeo · The Clue · Run 4 King · Fluke · The Power of Beauty · Counting on You · Welcome & Goodbye
Released August 28, 2026
