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."

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 Lost Art of Lament - Boston, Texas, and Gosnell

The trench is dug within our hearts
And mothers, children, brothers, sisters
Torn apart
 

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

Sunday, Bloody Sunday

How long...

How long must we sing this song?

How long, how long... 

~U2, Sunday,Bloody Sunday

We all know what it feels like to be homesick. The many months in a foreign land, the unfamiliar sounds of a different country. After the hours on the road, you drag yourself indoors, ready for the weariness and discomfort to cease, ready to embrace that unconditional lover: the couch. 

But sometimes, there are problems that have no solution. Ever had a dream in your head? Perfect and untouched, the idea for a poem, or a book, or a piece of art? But when you take up the pen, the words cannot describe it. You know exactly what you’re talking about, but everything you try feels wrong, a futile attempt to describe a greater truth. You throw language at an object, but nothing captures the essence of it. The painting is just a scrawled crayon glimpse of an uncapturable vision. Sometimes, we feel a hunger that nothing satisfies.

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.

Top 5's of 2012

Because I'm usually half a step behind the times, and generally wish I lived five hundred years ago, many of these things didn't come out in 2012, but that's when I discovered them.

Books:

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Prophet, Martyr, Spy – by the wonderful Eric Metaxas. This book not only tells the amazing story of German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but it also paints in vivid detail Hitler’s sneaky political alliance with “the church” and what the real Church was doing behind the scenes. Disturbing parallels with modern America.

Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery - also by Metaxas. I didn’t know very much about Wilberforce until I read this book, but now I think he’s one of the greatest influences on Western civilization in the last four hundred years. And a Christian.

The Fellowship of the Ring – by J.R.R. Tolkien. Yeah, yeah, I’ve read it before, but this is the first time I’ve really read it with the spiritual eyes open. Tremendous book. I'm halfway through The Two Towers, and I'm savoring every moment. Interestingly enough, I just found out that the copy we own (see pic) is the Ballantine second edition - and it has a weird misprint. If you happen to have several thousand dollars laying around, I'd be willing to negotiate.





Orthodoxy - by G.K. Chesterton. Simply foundational stuff. I loved this book. So many moments where one thinks "Gosh! It's so obvious, so obviously true, but I never thought of it. Amazing."










Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl - by N.D. Wilson. To come clean, I've only watched the bookumentary so far, but that was amazing. I won't quite look at anything the same way. Since, according to Shelfari, I've read about eighty books this year, it's quite an achievement. Along with Orthodoxy, it's had a major impact on my thinking.

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.