Matthew Perryman Jones - Land of the Living Review

I was first introduced to Matthew Perryman Jones's music in the summer of 2012, when he gave away his CD Land of the Living on Noisetrade. I wasn't overwhelmed - it was a slow-burn kind of album, and snuck up on me all through the long drowsy summer months. It took about two years for me to understand it was the best album I'd ever heard.

I'm glad I stuck with it, because while Land of the Living doesn't easily surrender its secrets - it does have them, and they are worth pursuing. The album is book-ended by songs which allude to the crossing of the Jordan and fall of the walls of Jericho. Stones From the Riverbed is vaguely a story of baptism, one must relinquish sin and darkness and "Fall into that mystery / or it will pull you under / It's okay to say goodbye."

Sara Groves - Invisible Empires - Album Review

I still remember the day I saw that stories were about more than events, but ideas, characters, and truth. This discovery didn't extend into music until recently. Could there be an equivalent of great literature in music? I watched the ideas. Andrew Peterson’s Light for the Lost Boy takes on the loss of innocence, and ultimate redemption. Matthew Perryman Jones’s impossibly good Land of the Living is so complex I still haven’t figured it all out, but dabbles in sin, death, grief, and redemption. I leapt into the stimulating world of ideas and their expression through music and poetic metaphor.

Sara Groves’s Invisible Empires is a first, though. She takes on ideas, all right, but ones that you generally wouldn’t find in music and certainly not in the mainstream CCM. Ideas like: bio-ethics, escapism, current politically correct ideology, the pressure to conform to society’s ideal, and death. It sounds more like science fiction topics.

Do You Hear the People Sing? - Guest Post from Allan Long

[Longish: I haven't written anything for the blog in a while, amid the craziness of NaNoWriMo and school, so I thought I'd fill in the gaps with this wonderful Facebook post of my dad's.]

There are occasions that God provides us with glimpses of what heaven may look like. Or at least what it would feel like. Apparently music is a part of that. What a wonder music is. The Bible mentions it in passing and one is left to wonder what melodies Jesus may have hummed while scribbling in the sand or planted beside a campfire. I think of the angels and their heavenly hosts praising God upon bearing the good news of peace on earth, goodwill towards men. And David trying to sooth the savage Saul with music. 

For this moment, I will not get drawn into disparaging secular music. I am not so jaded as to say all secular music is unholy. That would be the same as saying all work – not in God’s direction – is unholy. God can make beautiful things out of dirt (or Garth Brooks... Cher? That may be a stretch). Our feeble attempts at praise are laughable. Like a child that sings "Twinkle Twinkle….”, not understanding the vastness of space, furious nuclear explosions of unimaginable extent and forces that the best of minds cannot fathom. Yet sing they do.

Which brings me to this video. It brings out great things in men. Unity in purpose. Passion. Excellence. And while this is not a hymn, it is a short jump to make the connection that were the focus or purpose of this performance to be God almighty – hearts would be broken. I love this video. Because it makes me think about heaven in a ridiculously hopeful and joyous way. Heaven will be a lot about praise in every tongue. It will be this kind of music (x1000^100 for those math junkies) in a spectacular way. We see now darkly – but then face to face. We will see Christ in His glory and begin to get an appreciation of our helpless estate and the sacrifice Christ made on our behalf. I look forward to heaven for many reasons and new music in dimensions unknown will be a part of that. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

And for the record, I’d like to see the Irish guy and the Norway dude go head to head. They don’t have voices. Those are weapons…


Allan Long

Citizens and Matthew Perryman Jones

In the absence of a new post, I thought I'd share a few neat videos I've seen recently.

These two are about the coolest music vids I've seen. The first is by a band I just discovered - Citizens. They're the worship team for Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill Church. To be so simple, it's very dramatic.

This second is from one of my favorite albums of 2012, Matthew Perryman Jones's Land of the Living. Like most of the songs on the record, it's hard to say whether I've deciphered the meaning correctly or not, but with this one, I suspect my hunch is correct. Not to ruin it, but I hint that baptism and sin are major themes.

Enjoy,
Longish

The Weight of Glory - CD Review

When I saw a free CD on Noisetrade entitled The Weight of Glory, I knew exactly what that referenced. I’d never even heard of Heath McNease, but no questions asked, ten minutes later, I had his CD. Why? Each song is based on a different C.S. Lewis book.

C.S. Lewis is probably the most influential Christian scholar of the 20th Century. He’s widely embraced, even among Mormons, due to the fact that he tried to stay neutral on what Paul called “disputable matters.” Another reason for his popularity is his form of writing, which is very clear and concise. Lewis was an expert at explaining theology to laymen. He was the number two most-recognized-voice on the radio during the Blitz, right after Winston Churchill.

Besides being a great way to catch Christians’ attention, basing an album on Lewis is also a wonderful idea. In the way of sound, this album is all over the place, swinging from pop to folk rock to rap to a sort of smooth spacey sound. The Great Divorce is a master of catchiness—I still love it. A Grief Observed, after months of listening, still makes me cry. The Screwtape Letters is convicting and dark.

My brother, who never endorses a song, has actually admitted he likes the Problem of Pain, and I sometimes hear him whistling the chorus in the shower (for my brother, that’s a big deal). If you enjoy rap, there’s Mere Christianity. The Four Loves, examines the different phases of life—boyhood, college, adulthood—and connects them to the different loves in the book. Edmund examines the connection between the second Pevensie brother and Judas.

While the songs are at their best when the source material is familiar, it’s by no means necessary—they can stand on their own, and they do. It does, however, suffer from repetitiveness. Surprised by Joy is not very surprising. Still, overall, a very fun album—entirely worth the download.

Get it here. 

Longish

Christian Contemporary Music - My Campaign

Music's only purpose should be the glory of God and the recreation of the human spirit.
~J.S. Bach

Many of the Christians I know (and certainly all the atheists) hold the genre of Christian Contemporary Music in contempt. I don't mean that they actively hate it (though some do), but they certainly label it as lame, amateur, or feel-good clap-trap. Unfortunately, the majority of the stuff you'll hear on CCM radio stations is just that: Fluff. Mass-produced and very popular Fluff, but still Fluff. Only a few artists rise from the masses to actually deliver a profound and good song. Even then, it probably only made it to the radio for the sake of its catchy tune. Don't get me wrong - there can be good songs on the radio, but it has to be in a certain format. And it's a format that doesn't allow for much wiggling space. At most, you'll get that one good song.

But there's a big However. There are scads and scads of Christian musicians that never make it to CCM radio stations. Among the group I call the Fringe Artists lies a reservoir of rich talent seldom credited to the Christian musician. There's truly a little of something for everyone: pop, acoustic and electric rock, folksy-artistic-groovy, instrumental, plumb-good stuff, laments, rap (both lighter and heavier), heavy metal, southern rock, country, punk, rock in home-made spaceships, songs about Dutch artists, Peter Pan (with C.S. Lewis references), bio-ethics, living rooms, Aslan, and The Grey Havens. There are more music genres than I've even heard of. Let's contrast some Fluff with some Fringe.

Love & War & The Sea In Between - Review

Josh Garrels is a tough guy to categorize. Mixing folk, electronica, rap, and pop, his music is anything but ordinary, as is his incredibly unusual voice. In 2011, he released his sixth CD, Love & War & The Sea In Between, as a free download on www.noisetrade.com. Accruing over 125,000 downloads, it became Christianity Today’s album of the year. When I heard that Garrels was releasing it (and four other albums) again for two weeks’ free download, I jumped at the chance. 

It’s always hard to find an effective motif for a CD, but Love & War succeeds several times. Throughout the record, as hinted by the title, flows the image of the ocean, the metaphor of marriage, and frequent references to battle—yet the album is held together by the hopeful promise of God: our pilot in the storms; our husband, longing for the wedding day; our king in the chaos of war. Garrels uses these core ideas to form a very strong internal story. There is the additional theme of a journey, while each song remains a separate destination.

Concert Pics

Today – I had a confusing morning. This afternoon, I discovered my brother might be a famous apologist when he grows up. This evening, I met Coffey Anderson. And tonight, I accidentally broke my pledge for Lent (that milkshake appeared out of nowhere, I swear). All in all, a pretty busy day.

Coffey Anderson

Me and my family have been following Christian musician Coffey Anderson for years on YouTube, but it was just in January that he got some more widespread notice when a video of his son dancing with him on stage went viral.

 

 



 

 

Anyway - we're going to see him live on Tuesday. Coffey's been around, shining a light - even at the playboy mansion (which was very cool), where they need it more than anything. Check him out!

 

 

 

 

Longish

New Year

A bit late, but I wanted to wish everybody a happy new year. There are many CDs themed on Christmas, many more on Easter, and possibly even a few on Hanukah, but there's only one I've ever discovered that's about New Year's, and that's Eric Peters's latest offering: Birds of Relocation. Last night at our family gathering, we covertly played it while everyone was involved in Balderdash or Spoons, on our campaign to make Christian music cool. (Just for today, the CD is 20% off, and worth every penny.) But anyway, here are a few words that are far better than any I've ever written.


This is the year that something changes but nothing ever does
This is the year that all my failures turn into a pile of dust
This is the year, with fallen faces, we learn we’re not enough
This is the year to hold each other up

Oh, oh, oh it’s a new year
Oh, oh, oh it’s a brand new light
Oh, oh, oh can you believe it?
It’s the skies that we dream of

This is the year when laughter douses charred and burnt-out dreams
This is the year when wrens return to nest in storm-blown trees
Is this the year of relocation from boughs of old despair?
This is the year to perch on hope’s repair

I was pale and weary sad, tired of ghost debates
A slave to voices old and vile, bitter bones in the grave
But this is the year, it’s the year that something changes
This is the year, the year that something changes

Oh, oh, oh it’s a new year
Oh, oh, oh it’s a brand new light
Oh, oh, oh can you believe it?
It’s the skies that we dream of

Have a blessed and joyful new year.

Dream of the skies,
Longish

O Theo

Vincent Van Gogh was crazy talented…though probably more crazy. He’s best known as a painter, particularly of the odd, beautiful Starry Night. Later in his life, he had long bouts of madness, that has always made me think of him in a sort of Edgar Allan Poe barmy genius light. Eventually, he committed suicide. However, until this year, I didn’t know the story of Vincent’s younger brother, Theo.

Leonard the Lonely Astronaut - A Review

They built a spaceship behind a burrito place. They actually built a ship and recorded an album in it. Whether you think it’s the height of nerdiness or coolness (or both), it shows Andrew Osenga's devotion to this idea.

It’s not as crazy as it sounds. It’s a concept album, about a character named Leonard Belle. Leonard lives in the not-too-distant future, a place when spaceships can move at the speed of light. His life is falling apart. When his wife dies in the midst of a divorce, he finally goes off the deep end. Giving up everything, he takes a job on a space-freighter that will deliver supplies to a far-off outpost. Moving at light-speed, it will only be a year for him, but when he returns to Earth, everyone he knows will be dead. Leonard is pretty desperate to escape his problems. As a catharsis on his year-long journey, he decides to make an album.

I have no idea where the idea came from, but it’s pretty dang original. The result is very true to the idea—it sounds like something a middle-aged guy named Leonard would make, a sort of space-80’s-acoustic-rock mix-up. There are long soulful electric guitar solos, upbeat rock songs, jazzy laments. It’s got a good chunk of catchy songs that I’m still able to enjoy after quite a few listens. My younger brother, who is notorious for his neutrality on music, loves it.

In the end, to risk spoilers, Leonard realizes that going to space isn’t the answer to his problems, and he’s just as lonely as before. “It was not good for man to be alone,” he sings in the song of that name. It doesn’t feature too many great profound statements about humanity, but sometimes something jumps out and surprises me. Anyway, the subject matter is definitely above average stuff-on-the-radio, and it’s great fun to listen to. By and large, a good offering from Andrew Osenga.

Also. He’s wearing a home-made spacesuit on the tour.

COOL.

You can get it here or on iTunes.

Longish

Light for the Lost Boy - a Review

I remember the day of the Tennessee Flood,
The sound of the scream
and the sight of the blood.
My son he saw as the animal died
in the jaws of the dog as the river ran by,
He said, "Come back soon."

It takes guts to start an album with lines like that. When I first heard them, I was surprised and intrigued. And right from the get-go, Andrew Peterson fans, both new and old, aren’t quite sure what to expect. Unlike his previous albums, Lost Boy is immediately dark and brooding, while at the same time deep and satisfying.

The instrumental backing, (and in particular, the addition of the epic drumming of Will Chapman—yes, son of Steven Curtis) is much broader than with earlier records. Gone are the folksy banjos and fiddles, enter drums and mournful electric guitar. While unusual at first, I quickly decided it was cool, and it certainly still had that Andrew Peterson vibe to it (references to thunder and mountains, and at least one song with hammered dulcimer).

Come Back Soon, the opening track, introduces the main theme of the album: loss of innocence. The album draws inspiration from both The Yearling and Peter Pan, and there is frequent imagery of a boy, lost in the woods. In some ways, starting the album with Come Back Soon feels like starting off right where his previous record, Counting Stars, left off. Counting Stars ends with the lines,

I know that I don’t know what I’m asking,

But I long, Lord, I long to look you full in the face,

I am ready for the Reckoning.

The Songs We All Knew

I tend to be a little star-struck when it comes to the small group of people I think are famous. There's a certain group of amazing Christian musicians in Nashville who congregate on a website called The Rabbit Room (after the Eagle and Child pub, of Inklings fame). I only discovered them two years ago, but since then, we have acquired six Rabbit Room books, ten or more Rabbit Room albums, and check in frequently on the site for new posts. The Rabbit Room's proprieter is a singer/songwriter/author named Andrew Peterson.  He's such a household name with us that I can just say “Andrew said on Facebook earlier…” and the rest of the family will know exactly who I’m talking about.

Andrew Peterson on tour with Steven Curtis Chapman and Josh Wilson

Last year, after I met Michael Card, I said "Now, I just need to meet Andrew Peterson, and life will be complete. " A few weeks ago, I did meet him (at a concert in Winston-Salem) and he signed my copies of his books. My life is not, in fact, complete, but as soon as someone sends me a private plane and tickets to The Hobbit premiere, it will be. Make it happen, readers.

The Captains Courageous (their unofficial name) were terrific live. Andrew, Ben Shive and Andy Gullahorn, (the other Captains) were hilarious, making fun of one another or providing the sort of witty banter than makes shows better than CDs. We were fifteen feet from the stage, on the front row. With each song came an amusing and interesting tale; not only is he a gifted songwriter, but Andrew's a real storyteller too. He's like our pastor, Don, who can tell a joke and have us all in stitches, but when I tell it the next day...blank faces. Some people are just Funny when they're talking about anything. See the The Cheese Song.