Yesterday I had the great privilege of leading and preaching at the service to mark the beginning of the Mayoralty of Cllr Chris Malpas at All Saints, Northampton. I’m his chaplain for the year. I’m already finding the role fascinating and stretching. I thought I’d post the notes my talk was based on here, in case they are of interest. The readings were Micah 4:1-4 and Matthew 5:1-12
I wonder, do you still like to learn? We’re told aren’t we that it’s good, important, crucial even, to learn, continually. We live in an age of lifelong learning. Continuing Professional Development, or in my case, Curate Training and Continuing Ministerial Development, is all the rage. If you’re fortunate enough to have reached the stage where you’ve retired from work, you can fill your time with new experiences and knowledge in the University of the Third Age. The opportunities for learning are endless. Knowledge is power, we’re told, and who wants to be powerless in this day and age (or any day or age for that matter?). Knowing things, knowing that we’re right, and, all too often, ensuring that others know that we are right, have become key touchstones of our age. We’re not good at being wrong either. On Monday I prayed for the first time at a Borough Council meeting. From the wrong place. The Mayor was very gracious and said it didn’t matter, but I didn’t like feeling that I’d got it wrong and turned what should have been a sombre moment into a game of Where’s Wally or Where’s Chaplain? I’ve learnt for next time now!
Our first reading this morning from the prophet Micah talks of a time when people will go to the house of God and he will teach them his ways. His ways of peace, of disarmament, of a new way of life for all. Now, as rose-tinted as my spectacles may be, I know that not everybody who has come here this morning will set much stall by what the ways of God may be. However, I would hope that there are none amongst us this morning who would not seek for peace in our families and our communities, locally, nationally and internationally. The words in this reading, well known as they may be, about turning swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, are challenges for us as people who lead. What are the swords and spears, literal and figurative of our day? How can we lead in such a way that we set an example of a new way of living, one of justice, peace and joy, for all? It is not weak to act justly, to love mercy and to walk with humility, whether you believe you do so with God or not. To lead as a servant is one of the strongest acts a person can perform.
One of my favourite things about Jesus and his leadership is that he, like me, wasn’t fashionable. I mean, just look at me. But still, moving on, listen again to some of the key lines from the reading Mayor Malpas gave to us just now. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. You might think that’s all well and good, that leaves the earth for those of us who aren’t weak, fragile or vulnerable. But no, blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, we’re told. Later, we’re told that the merciful shall obtain mercy, and that peacemakers will be called children of God.
It’s not the most strident or tubthumping of manifestos is it. Not the sort of thing to get those popularity ratings sky-rocketing. It’s all too easy for people who pursue peace and justice for those they lead and serve as weak, to be taken advantage of. After all, this happened to Jesus. He was unfairly killed, so that the authorities could silence someone they considered an irritating, potentially dangerous political revolutionary. Except, of course, that it was in dying, giving up all of himself, that he gave each and every one of us the opportunity to have a relationship with God. It is only in this relationship that our lives can find their ultimate fulfilment, only in this relationship that we can be the people that we were always meant to be. God invites you this morning, whether for the first time, or again, to accept his gift of life in all its fullness, today. Walking with God, the leader of all, every moment of every day is an opportunity to learn again the privilege it is to live the lives that we do and to follow his example in pouring ourselves out for the good and benefit of all.
Leadership, of whatever sort, is always a sacrifice. It is costly. Those of you who hold office in the Borough, the County, or in any other civic role, will know that you give up a great deal to be who you are, in the roles you have. Thank you for the service you have given, and for that which you will give in the coming year. I pray for you that will learn the ways of God this year and that peace, justice and joy may be the hallmarks of our town.
Welcome to another installment of this, an (increasingly, it seems) occasional blog in which I wax lyrical about music and artists that have caused me to wax lyrical recently. Perhaps the (increasingly, it seems) occasional nature of this blog indicates how hectic my life continues to be. As I’ve written more for Drowned in Sound and Clash, I’ve also found myself being sent more and more music, from all over the world. As I can only listen to one album at once – if anyone has mastered a way of giving concentration to more than one at once please let me know – this means that it takes me a lot of time to digest things properly enough to be able to write something passably intelligent about them. For all the bands and PR people who have been waiting for these posts, I can only apologise. I am but one man. You’ll find in this blog quiet music, loud music, slow music and fast music. You’ll find music from at least three continents (unless I am mistaken). Some of it is bound to delight you. Some of it won’t be to your taste. Hopefully, none of it will appall you. Without further ado, let’s get cracking.
Bladed – Halloween in Bagamoyo
Watch the video for the title track to this wonderful album below.
At the start of this year, I received the hugest parcel of records that has ever arrived on my doorstep. My wife was not impressed with me, until she realised that the lovely people at Crispin Glover Records in Trondheim had, in effect, sent me every album they had released in the last three years. There were a lot of records. Crispin Glover is one of the most exciting and yet underappreciated labels in Europe. Releasing records associated with the astonishingly vibrant Trondheim scene, they have a diverse roster but maintain an unstinting devotion to only releasing albums of the highest quality. As a label home for many acts associated with one of my favourite bands, Motorpsycho (including one to follow shortly in this very post, Spidergawd), I was excited to delve in and listen to everything I could. The shining light, however, was not an album emanating from the Motorpsycho stable, but this, the third album from Bladed. Haloween In Bagmoyo is a nuanced and intelligent gem of modern pop-rock. Some commentators have compared it to a lost, female-fronted album by The Birthday Party. For me though, tracks such as ‘Lament of A Lost Young Radical’, with its glorious punch to the gut of a mid-section and its follower ‘A Clean Slate’ call to mind a more lyrical take on the early work of The Boxer Rebellion. That said, each track here is a trip of its own. There may only be 7 contained on this album, but so many ideas, such confident execution. The potent funk of ‘All Quiet From the Lighthouse’ is a real highlight, but to be honest this is transcendent music which defies categorisation. Mere words cannot do it true justice. It is a crime that this album has not been more readily written about and picked up outside Norway. The rest of the world is missing out. Make sure you aren’t one of them. And viva Crispin Glover!
Watch the astonishing live performance of the Lighthouse suite below
Chances are you’ve never heard of Spidergawd. A shockingly small number of people have. This has to change. We’ll see how often I come close to saying similar things in this post, but “III” the (wait for it) third album by Spidergawd has to be, it just HAS TO BE one of the best albums that 2016 has to offer. Have you watched the video above? It’s a live rendition of three track epic that closes the album. It alternates between intricate and yet somehow still straight-ahead hard rock (watch the drumming of Kenneth Kapstad for a masterclass in in the management of live light and shade) and luscious moments of gentle atmospherics. Perhaps at times it’s even a little overblown, but isn’t that the point? Spidergawd is a collective of some of the titans of Norway’s hard rock scene who over the course of three albums have honed to within an inch of perfection the art of kicking back, rocking out, and yet showing at every twist and turn a level of musical mastery which is sadly lacking from the majority of records of this type. In fact, scratch that, there aren’t many records of this type. Spidergawd are out on their own in front of a pack that might chase them but will never catch or overtake them. ‘No Man’s Land’ explodes with a crunching riff that never truly settles and is all the better for it. Odd bars of differing time signatures make tapping, dancing or any other kind of thing along to this song almost impossible. It’s like the music is leading the band and they are obediently following. ‘El Corazon Del Sol’ has just the right amount of cowbell (sometimes less is more) and another smouldering riff. The bass of Bent Saether is monstrous, giving a perfect undercurrent to the roars of Per Borten’s voice and guitar. The chorus hook, “In you I see the heart of the sun:, when it comes, is a moment of intense satisfaction. ‘The Best Kept Secrets’ (an apt song title for such an underappreciated band) gives the foremost exposure of the album to the saxophone of Rolf Martin Snustad. Yes you did read that
‘No Man’s Land’ explodes with a crunching riff that never truly settles and is all the better for it. Odd bars of differing time signatures make tapping, dancing or any other kind of thing along to this song almost impossible. It’s like the music is leading the band and they are obediently following. ‘El Corazon Del Sol’ has just the right amount of cowbell (sometimes less is more) and another smouldering riff. The bass of Bent Saether is monstrous, giving a perfect undercurrent to the roars of Per Borten’s voice and guitar. The chorus hook, “In you I see the heart of the sun:, when it comes, is a moment of intense satisfaction. ‘The Best Kept Secrets’ (an apt song title for such an underappreciated band) gives the foremost exposure of the album to the saxophone of Rolf Martin Snustad. Yes, you did read that. Spidergawd’s secret weapon is his penetrating stabs of glory. Here it punches through with an urgency that feels just right.
I could go on and on and on. But you get the picture. This is glorious album. Anyone who likes rock music should listen to it and should marvel at every aspect of it.
Desert Mountain Tribe – Either That Or The Moon
Watch the video for Runway below
After two albums from Norway, here is one of the best British debut albums of 2016. As Jonty Balls cries “3, 2 1, lift off” at the outset of ‘Feel the Light’, the sense that what follows couldn’t possibly live up to such an introduction nags. However, within a matter of mere seconds, all concerns are rendered invalid as the first of eleven smouldering slices of shock and awe slides into view.
From then on there’s no let-up. Whether it’s the undulating groove of ‘Midnight Sky’ that takes your fancy, or the rock solid, unrestrained passion of ‘Way Down’, or even the scything guitar attack of ‘Heaven and Hell’, there is no doubt that something on this special piece of work certainly well. Throughout, the rhythm section of the brothers Jahn, Philipp and Felix, provide a powerful foundation on which these songs, all of which, it seems were desired to be ‘epic’ can swoop and soar.
At times, as on ‘Runway’, things stray a little too close to 90s Britpop for my taste, and there’s no denying that things are a mite more controlled and ordered than on the bands’ earlier EPs (seek them out) but by the time we get to ‘Interstellar’, any minor quibbles are incinerated. This song is one of the best of the year. If other tracks here are epic, then goodness knows what this one is. It builds and builds to a climax the like of which is rarely seen in these times of safe musical choices in the hope of radio play. I mean, for goodness sake, it lasts over 9 minutes and makes each second count.
I fear my words have not done this album justice. Listen and let it wash over you. You won’t regret it.
Field Studies – Rainmaking EP
Coming across initially as if they will turn out to inherit the same wheel-house (don’t you hate that phrase?) as Paul Epworth-endorsed synth-indie chaps Glass Animals, it is pleasing to report that the scope of the ambition of Field Studies extends far, far more widely. Just take in the glory of ‘Listener; below. All sunny groove and pleasant falsetto one minute, it all breaks down to a fabulously-unhinged instrumental coda just when you expect it to do that exact opposite. Isn’t that just what we want from up and coming rock bands. The element of surprise, the controlled detonation at the moment of greatest potency, this marks Field Studies as a band sure to transcend the humdrum and rise, forthwith, to the upper pantheon of British rock. Seriously, they’re that good. ‘Hushed Up’ is sprawling in its ambition, verging on Boxer Rebellion territory in its atmospherics, but far exceeding anything of the recent output of that band. A sinuous, Spaghetti Western-esque guitar riff underpins the whole thing, but there are so many twists and turns, so much musical ground covered and confidence shown that before the track is even half done I’m hooked. Perhaps the only current artist matching their ambition is Kiran Leonard. That’s nice company to keep. ‘Crook’ takes the aggression up a level, while closer ‘Verbatim’ is an atmospheric journey through swathes of piano and synths.
It cannot be emphasised enough when this EP releases on May 27th, you have to buy it. Bands like Field Studies deserve all the support we can muster. I haven’t written anything about the spine-tingling-inducing vocal tones, or the almost telepathic tightness of the whole ensemble, because there are elements to this EP which you just need to find out for yourself. So, and I cannot stress this strongly enough, make sure you do.
Enemy Planes – Beta Lowdown
Watch the video for ‘We Want Blood’ below’
This record came out of leftfield for me. One of what feels like dozens of albums I get sent on a weekly basis from PR companies who have read reviews I’ve written elsewhere, “Beta Lowdown” grabbed me straight away, even as I was thinking of skating right past it. I’ve already mentioned Glass Animals once in this post, but Enemy Planes have something of that vibe about them. Their sound is positioned somewhere between that pole on the one hand and a more restrained Silversun Pickups on the other. A particular highlight is opener ‘Automatic Catatonic’ which unfurls itself slowly around a wonderful, squelchy distorted bass line and syncopated groove as guitars and synths pop and swirl throughout the mix before the chorus arrives and lifts the whole thing to another level “when you know we’re not supposed to feel like this, and you know you can’t wake me with a kiss, let’s be honest, it’s a dead end” it implores, but this feels nothing like a dead-end. It feels like the gateway to something truly special. And so it proves.
The scattershot ‘Stranger Danger’ is another high point. Another spasmodic-dancing-inducing bass line drives the thing along, as the drums there’s some crystalline pure falsetto to contend with too. The track is unabashedly euphoric, a rare ‘up’ moment on an album of tension. Really though the whole thing fits together so well that to pinpoint individual moments is to miss the crux of what this record is about. It’s a delightful smorgasbord of atmosphere and emotion, best consumed thoughtfully and as a whole.
I gather this record has already found chart success in America. It’s no surprise. Hopefully, it will be well supported here too.
Laura Gibson – Empire Builder
Watch the video for ‘Not Harmless’ below
As album genesis stories go, the one which brought about “Empire Builder” from Laura Gibson takes some beating. She lost almost everything she owned when the building her apartment was in in New York blew up at the end of March last year. This pensive, alternately mournful and sonorous album is the result of the efforts she and an army of friends and collaborators have gone to in the following year not just to piece together the songs she lost, but to place her life back together.
And what a fine document of transition and renewal it is. Featuring members of Death Cab For Cutie, Neko Case, The Decemberists, as well as Alela Diane and the fabulous orchestration of Peter Broderick, this is a layered alt-folk odyssey. Ranging from the skewed, woozy psychadelia of ‘The Cause’, through the twee beauty of ‘Damn Sure’, with its singalong chorus, the cinematic sweep of ‘The Search For Dark Lake’, all the way to closer ‘The Last One’ which builds to a cacophonous climax, threatening to spin right out of control before ending the record on a sumptuously melodic note, this is precise and carefully constructed folk-pop of the highest order.
William Ryan Fritch – New Words For Old Wounds
Listen to ‘Revisionist’ the title track from William’s previous album, below.
I first came across William Ryan Fritch after he was enthusiastically promoted by the editor of Drowned in Sound. This guy’s music, as well as his consistency and his herculean work ethic, are something to behold. Over the last few years, in a series of 11 releases, Fritch has developed his compositional and performance techniques to such an extent that he must now be considered one of the cornerstones, no, one of the titans, of the orchestral pop/classical crossover movement. There are honestly not enough superlatives available in the English language to describe the joyous, giddy wonder of listening to a new WRF release, letting it envelop the senses and reveal the full extent of its symphonic glory. I know this all sounds predictably hyperbolic, but I care not! This is spellbinding stuff, the kind which makes the listener wonder ‘how the hell did they do that?’ and ‘Why does this work? It shouldn’t, but it does’ and finally ‘Why aren’t more writers and composers this fearless and unboundaried in their writing?’
See, this is what William Ryan Fritch does. He takes classical orchestration, the song structures of chamber pop and indie rock, and he twists and turns them into a whole new musical landscape which feels like it should always have existed, but sadly hasn’t. Until now. It might all seem a little much. It might pull a listener from their comfort zone, never to return. It will, whatever, be the most exciting new musical discovery you make this year.
With this new release, Fritch has added extra scope and bombast to his previously taut pieces. The addition of vocalists DM Stith on ‘Awake’ and ‘After’ (a reverb drenched melange of kitchen-sinked 6/8), Power Dove on the the hazy ‘Floats By’ and Ceschi on ‘Hold Tight’ adds a great deal, but it should be said that the best vocals on the record come from Fritch himself, on the thunderous ‘Entirety’. ‘Hold Tight’ has so many competing string melodies as to send the mind happily delirious, while ‘Disregard’ should be the soundtrack to a particularly demented superhero chase scene.
But, seriously, when this one comes out, you need to be all over it.
Ana Ćurčin – Sketches of Belonging
Watch the video for ‘Remain Calm’ below
Some of my favourite albums to write about are those that I knew nothing of whatsoever before they arrived in my inbox. It always feels like something of a risk to click to listen to a new, unknown (to me) artist. What will I find? Will I be disappointed (again), or will something special be waiting for me?
In the case of “Sketches of Belonging”, the new album from Ana Ćurčin, my expectations were gloriously exceeded. This is fabulous folk music from Belgrade. Calling to mind at times Damien Jurado, or even Damien Rice, and at others the beguiling fury of Glen Hansard/The Swell Season, this is a beautiful album, hands down the standout singer-songwriter release of the early part of 2016. Ana has a strong, clear vocal, sometimes redolent of PJ Harvey. She is equally at home in the gentle, confessional mode of ‘Anxiety’, or ‘Unkown’ on the one hand and the more confrontational, stomping ‘Alone’ on the other, by way of the sweetness of ‘Princess’ and the driving ‘Someday’. She handles all these stylistic shifts with aplomb, ably assisted by sensitive and evocative instrumentation throughout. Production by Goran Antović gives the songs space to breathe and flow splendidly, but really the centre of it all is Ana, her voice and her special songs. You might not have heard of or about this album, but you should. I want you to stop what you’re doing and listen to this album, right now. And then buy it.
“Your name fizzes on my tongue”, says the chorus to the debut single from Jealous of the Birds ‘Goji Berry Sunset’. Well, one listen to this fine debut album from Armagh native Naomi Hamilton and it should be the name Jealous of the Birds that is on everyone’s lips. What begins as a seemingly pretty folk record with the aforementioned single, and the title track, takes a grittily rocking turn with ‘Russian Doll’ before the quirkily acoustic ‘Miss Misanthrope’ seems to return things to a kind of normality. Except it doesn’t, because the joy of this album is that there is no such thing as ‘normal’. So ‘Trouble in Bohemia’ is a jangly folk song, by way of a Nirvana-aping chord progression in the chorus and a rocking second half. ‘Tonight I Feel Like Kafka’ is propelled by a synth lead line, ‘Dandelion’ would fit on a Lotte Kestner album, ‘The Zodiac Bar’ has a militaristic rhythmic character and some beautiful close harmony work vocally before it lets go into an outro that would befit the finest of songs by The National.
Do you see, it’s all over the place, but it all works. This is music to sink your teeth into, music to be delighted by.
Nothing – Tired Of Tomorrow
Watch the video for ‘Eaten By Worms’ below (it gets a bit bloody)
Ten tracks of unrelenting, shoegaze-drenched modern rock thunder. That’s what the doctor ordered and is exactly what is delivered by the return of Nothing. 2014’s Guilty of Everything was a surprise hit. A surprise in the sense that no-one saw it coming, but that when it did come its place in the ears and hearts of those who like their rock music intense and melodic was assured. Released on Relapse Records, a label renowned for specialising in punishing metal, it was perhaps a shock to see such a clean sounding band emerge from their stable, but with “Tired Of Tomorrow” Nothing cement their status as a thoroughly important band.
‘Fever Queen’ and ‘The Dead Are Dumb’ open things up in noted Nothing territory. The grooves are slow and steady, the guitars are enormous, and the choruses are huge. Signs of artistic development really begin to emerge on the driving ‘Vertigo Flowers’ and ‘ACD (Abcessive Compulsive Disorder)’, tracks which take in myriad shifts in dynamic and tempo and seemed primed and ready for radio takeover. Elsewhere, ‘Eaten By Worms’ features some beautiful chromatic shifts and is probably the album’s most distorted song (that’s a difficult one to call!) whereas the song which follows it, ‘Everyone is Happy’ is, wait for it, something of an acoustic ballad. Who knew Nothing had the will to produce such a track? And yet, like everything else they touch, it turns to gold.
This is far from a subtle album, but if you’ve been wishing for something akin to the furthering of the recent grunge revival, you cannot let this album pass you by when it’s released later this month.
Heron Oblivion – Heron Oblivion
Listen to ‘Oriar’ below
Last year, I greatly enjoyed reviewing Meg Baird’s solo album, “Don’t Weigh Down the Light”. It was a fine piece of work, spectral folk songs paired with a soothing lilting vocal. What could be better? Well, it turns out that seven tracks allying that same glorious vocal with two members of riff-meisters Comets On Fire could at least run it close. That’s what we get from Heron Oblivion on this album, which in a post full of contenders for the crown of my album of the year so far, finds itself nevertheless right at the top of the pile. Everything about this record just works. ‘Beneath Fields’ rolls along before letting go of all inhibitions at just the right moment. You will have already heard ‘Oriar’, which explodes into action on a sea of furious guitar before taking on something of a mystical vibe through the verses. The sense of satisfaction when the riff returns, periodically throughout the track, is intense. ‘Sudden Lament’ is more of a straightforward, driving rock song, like the sort of thing Dawes would come up with if they got into more fights. And then comes ‘Rama’. Ah, ‘Rama’. 10.30 of a loping drum groove, over which all manner of quiet, loud, louder instrumentation is given full license to extend and express itself. The effect is marvel-inducing. If ever there was a song to truly give an impression of what a band wants to be about and known for, this is the one. ‘Faro’ wins the title for the album’s best riff, a squall of furious feedback which only gets more consuming as the song progresses. ‘Seventeen Landscapes’ has a deliciously funky bass riff at its heart which returns periodically like a faithful friend, whilst closer ‘Your Hollows’ takes things to their logical conclusion, a seriously deranged collection of riffs vying for the attention.
This is a great record. Don’t miss it.
Monomyth – Exo
Watch this amazing band playing live at The Paradiso, Amsterdam, back in March, below
Last summer I watched Monomyth with my wife, some friends, and approximately 4 other people, in The Craufurd Arms, the best small venue in the Midlands. You should watch the video above. It will make you happy to be alive. I promise you.
As will their new album, “Exo”. Any album which begins, like this one does, with a track which tops fourteen and a half minutes without outstaying its welcome has to be on to something. ‘Uncharted’ is comfortably rolling through its eleventh minute before hitting peak head-nodding temperature for the first time. The sense of anticipation as this point is reached is palpable, and when it comes the feeling it evokes is almost indescribable. Very few bands have the power and control to crescendo and diminuendo in the way that Monomyth do. The groove is always the key, but somehow, there are enough hooks throughout each of their noodling workouts to make this more than mere prog music. This is the creation of an atmosphere, a kind of altered state, which enables the listener to both rock out and transcend their surroundings. A truly rare gift.
Elsewhere, “Exo” does not disappoint. ‘Surface Crawler’ is a faster-paced workout than many would be used to from Monomyth, the crystal-clear mix bringing out every element of this pristine track. ‘ET Oasis’ builds to a climax worthy of the gone, much-lamented but not forgotten Pure Reason Revolution and includes some tasty Hammond Organ work. Synth pads and leads dominate the majority of ‘LHC’, whilst closer ‘Moebius Trip’ begins in a seething fury before the track, and the album, disappears to nothing on a bed of twinkling pads. This is, no doubt, Monomyth’s finest recorded hour. Do not miss them as and when they pass through your city this year.
Mugstar – Magnetic Seasons
Watch the video for ‘Flemish Weave’ below
Another psych-infused album. Another intense listen. Two songs comfortably cresting the wave of a quarter of an hour. Can my ears take it? As we edge towards the end of this marathon post (still with me?) we’re saving (almost) the most epic record until last. Mugstar are from Liverpool, have been around since 2003, and have committed their most intensive set of sonic explorations to tape here. This album is such a full-on listen it seems silly to try and analyse it, so I won’t, not properly at least. Suffice to say, everything you could possibly want from an instrumental, free-thinking, free-wheeling, psych-influenced rock band can be found herein. Everything. I checked.
‘Unearth’ is a monster of ups and downs, a solid rhythmic foundation leaving room for guitar attacks of various kinds. ‘Time Machine’ punishes with its propulsive main figure. ‘Remember The Breathing’ provides a kind of light relief, however maintaining the sense that things could kick off at any moment. The second half of the album emphasises melody over volume, as a succession of mid-tempo pieces showcase the full extent of the band’s compositional capabilities. And then we reach closer ‘Ascension Island’. All seventeen minutes and twenty six seconds of it. A lot happens during this song (as you might expect). It is the perfect way for a band like Mugstar, on a label like Rock Action, to close an album and, at the same time, to formally announce their arrival as a powerhouse of the UK rock scene.
Motorpsycho – Here Be Monsters Vol. 2
Watch the video for ‘Spin, Spin, Spin’ (not actually on this album but from the same sessions) below
For a final piece for this time, I turn, once again, to Motorpsycho. Having seen the band this past Tuesday on their sole UK date of this year, promoting “Here Be Monsters”, an album I loved, and reviewed for Drowned in Sound earlier this year, I was glad to pick up this companion piece, featuring the album’s title track. All power to a band who record a title track for their album and then deem it too long to fit on said record. The track is split into two parts here. Part 1 begins with layers and layers of synth strings before developing into a pleasant mid-tempo instrumental, with occasional vocal interventions. Just before the eleven minute mark, the tempo shifts to a much more strident push, showcasing the control of drummer Kenneth Kapstad to the full. The track closes with washes of guitar from Snah as it fades into the almost incidental music of ‘The Etchings Of The Seed Atom’. This, in turn, gives way to the raucous loss of control that is the first 2.38 of Pt 2. Out of the chaos, the monsters perhaps, however, emerges the order of the song’s extended outro. As the time signature seems to alternate between 5/4 and 6/8, guitar and synth melodies combine to bring beauty out of darkness as the track fades to nothing.
A glorious, quirky companion piece to “Here Be Monsters”, the album, perhaps here the three members of Motorpsycho have produced thier most wildly abandoned and far-reaching work to date. As a band which is always working, creating, on the move, it is fascinating to think just what could emenate from them next.
It’s been a couple of months in the writing (life happened) but, finally, here’s the next installment in my 2016 songwriting odyssey. ‘See in the Dark’ is another pretty serious song, this time about certainty, and the loss of it, and whether or not that’s ok. I wanted to write a song from the place of having lost certainty, resisting the temptation that can sometimes befall songwriters, especially Christians I think, for everything to resolve nice and neatly. It seems to me life isn’t really like that very often.
I’ll do my best to present a jolly, jaunty little summer number next time!
Without further ado, here’s the video. Hope you all enjoy. Thanks for watching.
So much of what makes knowing and following Jesus so exhilarating, so crucial, so necessary to human flourishing is encapsulated in the readings which we are looking at here. Continuing on from our jaunt in to Romans a couple of days ago, Paul is at pains to emphasise the sheer majesty and wonder of Jesus, and his total sufficiency. Not just in terms of what he has done, but in who he is. It isn’t just his action that makes him acceptable to God and able to present us holy and blameless to him. It is who he is. Similarly, the work of salvation Jesus has done for us doesn’t just render freedom where captivity once resided, it changes us at the very core of who we are. We are new people. We wear the skins we have always worn, but everything ultimately consequential about us has been made new because of this god-man, this second Adam who has won the victory and brought us to fullness of life. He is only able to do this because the fullness of God dwells in him, or to put it another way, because he is God.
We are full of life because God has made us full of life. Nothing we can do can make us more full of life. We are full as full can be already. Don’t be deceived by claims that you can have more, better, a closer relationship with God through a certain way of living, speaking, singing or anything else. You have fullness, closeness, full intimacy already. Accept no weak substitutions for intimacy with God. Instead, rejoice that you have the freedom that was meant for you. Freedom to know the Lord, to trust him, to give your life to him. That’s all this life is for. Everything else is a pale imitation of life, joy and the hope Jesus died and rose to make real.
With apologies to those who have been waiting, and probably given up, for these posts to return after a two-week break. I decided to pare down what I worked on in the week before Easter, and have then been on holiday this past week. Normal service will now, I hope, be resumed.
‘Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all.’
Do we believe what Paul says about the saving work of Jesus Christ (his death and resurrection) here? People have spent whole lifetimes trying to work out the salvific value of the cross, to whom it applies and what must be done in order to benefit from its consequence (or, to be crude, to be saved). Who’s in? Who’s out? What do we do to get ‘in’?
There are things that Christians are expected to do. We are to love others at least as much, if not more, than we love ourselves. We are to love the poor. We are to partner with God in building his new way of life here, because has given us that privilege. We are, primarily, to love God with everything we have, worshipping him, but not just with Rend Collective songs, or Charles Wesley hymns, with who we are and how we live. We’re to prioritise service, with everything we have, including our money. We’re to pray for those in authority, speaking the truth in love to power.
But none of that, in and of itself, gives life to anyone. Jesus Christ gives life and justification, purpose and all that goes with it, to everyone. Not just some people, his one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all, Paul says. All. Not just some. There’s no contraction or contingency here based on us behaving rightly in order to receive the undeserved consequences of the act of righteousness. We don’t even have to say a special prayer at a particularly emotive moment in our lives. Jesus has brought justification and life to all.
If this is true, and I can see already the sharpening of keyboards everywhere quoting various scriptures that might argue against it, doesn’t this have a monumental impact on everything? Perhaps Paul misunderstood salvation. Well, wouldn’t that be interesting. Some of us would struggle with that even being possible. Perhaps he’s journeying with his thinking on the issue. Perhaps what he really meant isn’t what has been communicated to us by the translation here. I wonder what Jesus would have to say about what he is asserting here.
But what about this: what if the greatest lie the devil uses in this age to confuse and concern people, aside from the one about not existing at all, is that Jesus did not know what he meant when he said ‘it is finished’ on the Cross? Wouldn’t that be a neat and powerful trick? See, I believe Jesus did know what he meant. Exactly what he meant. He meant that we have life and justification. Not so that we could build edifices, power structures, empires, whole industries, around his name and following him. We have life and justification so we can share it with everyone, those who know the life Jesus has won for them and those who do not.
A time is coming when evil’s complete annihilation and the total, final victory of love will become plain to all. This is the promise of the Cross and the wonder of the grace and mercy of God. So, lots of fine and fancy words, but what difference will they make to how we live today?
Have you ever prayed so earnestly that it was as if you were sweating blood? In our comfortable Western context, prayer can easily lack intensity. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a place where someone sweated like great drops of blood blood in anguished prayer. If they did, we’d probably try and calm them down, make them sit down so as not to distress other people. Jesus, as he does this, is entering the most intense moment, not just of his life, but arguably of all of human history. Still, it’s a detail that can sometimes get brushed over in our cultural of appropriateness.
Jesus finds his disciples sleeping ‘because of grief’ and demands that they pray ‘earnestly that you might not come into the time of trial’. If we do pray like this, it’s easy for us to slip into feeling selfish or to descend into self-absorption. Recently, the concept of the enemy ‘prowling like a lion that he might devour some’ has been much on my mind. As I write this in front of the backdrop of the unfolding event of the terror attacks in Brussels this morning, I find myself thinking again of how accepting I have become of ‘times of trial’, moments when evil rears its head and wreaks as much havoc as it possibly can, seeking not just to devour individuals, but whole communities, cultures and ideologies. Evil is part of our world, our lives, but it is never acceptable. We should do all we can to stand against it, recognising, especially this week of all weeks, that we have one who is for us and who went to the Cross to defeat evil. In our own lives, in our thoughts and actions, in our words, in our politics, in the choices we make with money, let us not be people who repay evil for evil. Let’s instead be people who pray earnestly for those who find themselves in a time of trial, that the merciful love of God would enfold them. Let’s be people who, when faced with evil, repay it with good. Where there is hatred, let’s bring love. Easy in theory, but all so very hard in practice.
Let’s be people who hold true to the one we believe in and love, the Prince of Peace.
As we enter Holy Week once again, the challenge for the reader is not to understand and explain what and why things happened, but working out which elements of the story we should particularly focus on this particular year’s journey to the cross. The scale and scope of the narrative and its consequences are too great for us to comprehend its entire breadth at all times, or at least they are for me. Reading the story of Judas deciding to betray Jesus this morning, the eye is drawn to the question at the passage’s end. These people had lived with and followed Jesus for three years. How could any of them betray him?
All of us have experience of committing to a person, group or institution and ending up disappointed. As those who welcomed Jesus in to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday felt let down by the lack of a strong and mighty saviour and disavowed him on Good Friday under pressure from the Jewish authorities, so it can be easy for us to decide that, as we haven’t got what we wanted from those we put our trust in, what we were promised, even, then we’re well within our rights, our entitlement, to go and find what we deserve elsewhere.
I often wonder about the emotional life of Jesus, about his feelings. We’re given small glimpses into it in the Gospels, but not on this particular occasion. Here’s one who has come to bring about a new covenant between God and his people, betrayed by those he loved, who he has taught, related to, lived his life with and for.
And yet for all our deal making and seeking to better ourselves without reference to him, or even perhaps whilst attempting to use him as a bargaining chip, Jesus went to the cross anyway. He chose to die, to lay down his life for his friends. That’s the call of the Christian life, to accept the gifts God gives us, and then to live in such a generous way that those gifts are shared as widely as possible. We are to lay down our lives, not seeking to protect ourselves or feather our own nests.
One of the primary points of this series of blogs is encapsulated in this passage. As we live the life of faith, as we wonder and question, as we doubt, let’s be people who are provoked to, and provokers of, love and good deeds. Love and good deeds are not the exclusive preserve of those who have a Christian faith, but as Christians, it seems logical that they should be something that flow from us as the joyful obedience of our relationship with Jesus Christ, and the value we place on one another and ourselves as we are able to see people from the Spirit’s point of view.
And then, look at verse 25! Even in the days of the preparation of the New Testament, it seems that there were people who had designed that meeting together as Church wasn’t for them, for whatever reason. Some things never change. I’m increasingly convinced of the importance of gathering together as the family of faith, to eat, to worship, to pray, to have fellowship. We can’t be one as Jesus and the Father are one and not be together. People get hurt by Churches (usually people within Churches who take on the visage of representing the whole organisation). Churches are not perfect. They never will be. Recently I watched the film Spotlight. It’s a harrowing portrayal of an institution which failed in every conceivable way. The Church, with a big C, failed. It is no surprise that people want to have nothing to do with a Church that behaves this way, nor with the God that they purport to represent. Spotlight is an extreme example, but many of us have had things happen to us that might well justify us never darkening the doors of a Church again. There are days when the last place I would choose to be is in Church, honestly. While each person’s experience is their own, I do get why Church is a very difficult place for a lot of people to be in.
The closest I’ve come to seeing perfection enacted in a Church is watching people from virtually all walks of life and experiences gathered together around the table at Communion. It’s here that we remember that Jesus has broken every barrier down. Churches will fail. We will find reasons to leave. Sometimes they will be good, entirely understandable. And yet, ‘all are welcome, all are welcome, all are welcome in this place’, as the song (repetititively) goes. We who are the Church have a huge job to do to make our families welcoming and accessible to all. Particularly so because any barriers that exist now are those which we have erected ourselves. God took them all away. Nothing should stand in the way of people coming together to worship him.
Don’t exclude yourself from one of the most important, and best, elements of being a follower of Jesus. Changing things from the inside is always more satisfying in the end anyway.
‘I will remember their sins and lawless deeds no more’
Today’s is one of the most amazing passages in the whole of Scripture (in my opinion). Jesus gave a single offering for all sin, which was sufficient to satisfy the demands of justice. The law of love wins! All the offering and sacrificing we can do will not ever lead us to freedom, Jesus’s gift to us is the only thing that can do that.
And not only that, as the quote at the top of this post says, God promises that he will put sins and lawless deeds out of his mind. He will not remember them. This seems entirely contrary. I keep a record of my own wrongs, even though I shouldn’t. More than this, I am bad at keeping a record of the wrongs of others. Am I loving them? When we find ourselves living in times when injustice is meted out to the poor on an institutional scale and every reading of a news article’s ‘under the line’ comments section indicates a national hardening of heart towards those who are in need, there is a rising within me of a desire for justice (which I think is good) as well as a desire for the restoration for balance (still good, I think) and finally a desire for some kind of redress (this is where it gets bad, I think). We are to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with God. If, at any point I find myself claiming that I am less in need of the grace and mercy of God than those who vote for or implement unjust laws, those whose opinions I disagree with, however strongly, claiming that those things are more sinful and in need of mercy than I am, then I deceive myself.
We live in times when it is all too easy to be fearful. Just look at the political leadership situations in most of the most powerful nations of the world. But God is my light and my salvation, whom then shall I fear? We have a God who could remember our sins and lawless deeds, who could count them against us, who could do anything he likes at any moment. He chooses grace and mercy. Let’s do the same today.
There’s something about knowing people are praying for you. Whatever you think prayer is, or whatever you think prayer does, it’s impossible, it seems to me, not to at least be touched by knowing that someone is praying for you. It does us some good to realise that we’re being remembered and thought of by others, that they consider us worth lifting before God, whatever we’re going through. I have real trouble fathoming the mechanics of prayer, beyond the idea that it’s an ongoing conversation between God and the person that is praying to him. On that basis, I try hard not to present a shopping list of demands, and instead to get to a place where I don’t hide from God (what a waste of time that is anyway), and, if I am to understand what he is saying to me, that I’ve given myself the best chanceSo, how astonishing is it that, when he entered into heaven after his ascension, Jesus took as one of his primary tasks continuing exactly this conversation with God on behalf of people, on behalf of you and me. We’re so valuable to him that he keeps bringing us to God’s attention, day and night, night and day. We are never forgotten.
So, how astonishing is it that, when he entered into heaven after his ascension, Jesus took as one of his primary tasks continuing exactly this conversation with God on behalf of people, on behalf of you and me. We’re so valuable to him that he keeps bringing us to God’s attention, day and night, night and day. We are never forgotten, never alone.
It’s seemingly bonkers. But then isn’t most of the gospel of Jesus Christ? We, us humans, are all of irreplaceable value to God. Think about that when you’re down on yourself, or other people today. The good news of Jesus is that he brought glory to God in how he lived, died, resurrected and ascended, and he did it all so that we could be with God.