sufjan and the good news

below is an excerpt from an interview at The Quietus on October 12th.

...Is it good to work with people who have faith? I guess it wouldn’t be as easy working with drug addled lunatics right?

SS: Hahaha. [Pause] What’s the question?

I should probably rephrase it. You’re a Christian, so it’s probably easier to work with Christians than some heathen hoovering up cocaine every day...


SS: Yeah. [Long pause] What?!

What I’m asking is, is it easier to work with somebody in the same faith instead of somebody of a secular disposition?


SS: [Pintersque pause] Ahhh no, not at all. I don’t draw lines when it comes to my work. People I work with come from all over the place. There’s heathens and potheads in my band. I love them all, so...

Being an artist of some repute do you find the calling to spread the Good News sits awkwardly with your profile? Is it difficult?


SS: Not necessarily, you know, I think the Good News is about grace and hope and love and a relinquishing of self to God. And I think the Good News of salvation is kind of relevant to everyone and everything.


I find as I get older due to a sequence of events spirituality becomes more intriguing, though having been indoctrinated with the hard line dogma that I’d go to hell if I didn’t follow certain practices and believe very specific things, I was quite angry about Christianity for a while.

SS: Oh dear.

I suppose you could call it Protestant guilt.


SS: The church is an institution and it’s incredibly corrupt obviously, but that’s because it’s full of dysfunctional people and people who are hurt and battered and abused. It’s very normal in any institution to have that kind of level of dysfunction. That’s unfortunate. I find it very difficult, I find church culture very difficult you know; I think a lot of churches now are just fundamentally flawed. But that’s true for any institution you know, that’s true for education, universities and it’s definitely true for corporations because of greed, and I think part of faith is having to be reconciled with a flawed community. But the principles, I don’t think the principles have changed. They can get skewed and they can get abused and dogma can reign supreme, but I think the fundamentals, it’s really just about love. Loving God and loving your neighbour and giving up everything for God. The principles of that, the basis of that is very pure and life changing.


Do you believe that God can be reached through other faiths? John 3:16 categorically states Jesus is "the way, the truth and the life" and nobody can get to the Father expect through him. A lot of people take that very literally and don’t believe you can find spirituality through Buddhism or Islam or whatever...


SS: Yeah, I mean who can know the mind of God and who can be his counsellor? It’s not man’s decision, you know. If God is infinite and he’s in all of us and he created the world then I feel there is truth in every corner. There’s a kind of imprint of his life and his breath and his word and everything. You know, I’m no religious expert, and I don’t make any claims about the faith. All I can account for is myself and my own belief and that’s a pretty tall order just to take account of myself. I can’t make any claims about other religions. There’s no condemnation in Christ, that’s one of the fundamentals of Christianity.


The Gospels are a good read, and then you get Paul ruining everything with his right wing attitudes.


SS: Well Paul is a good reference for the character of church institutions, the setting down of cultural principles. Because God is the church and the church is an institution and the institution is culture; you have to reckon with all the trappings of culture and that’s kind of what Paul designed. You know, that was his role. You can’t read it without looking at it in the cultural context of the time and place, it’s inherent you know.


Church originally was a body of people and it had nothing to do with a building.


SS: I mean it’s weird. What’s the basis of Christianity? It’s really a meal, it’s communion right? It’s the Eucharist. That’s it, it’s the sharing a meal with your neighbours and what is that meal? It’s the body and blood of Christ. Basically God offering himself up to you as nutrition. Haha, that’s pretty weird. It’s pretty weird if you think about that, that’s the basis of your faith. You know, God is supplying a kind of refreshment and food for a meal. Everything else is just accessories and it’s vital of course, baptism and marriage, and there’s always the sacraments and praying and the Holy Spirit and all this stuff but really fundamentally it’s just about a meal.


And there’s the cross of course. It’s an extremely powerful symbol and it has permeated into some of the greatest art and literature of the last couple of thousand years, but it’s peculiar that people wear an object that represents the putting to death of their Lord.


SS: It’s really morbid. It’s a really morbid symbol you know. It is very grotesque when you start thinking about it. But it’s also beautiful you know, it’s the ultimate sacrifice. And I think it relates to the meal as well because it’s Christ giving up his blood and flesh as food and that then itself is the giving up of his body for eternal life, therefore salvation.

derek webb takes on gnarles and sufjan

been a slow month - been posting most things to facebook - need to figure out a better pattern. like... post here and then put a link on twitter/facebook. 

or... post nothing :)

i found this today - the gnarles barley cover is great.

derek webb covers sufjan, gnarls barkley…

MAY 27, 2010

by jalldredge

I posted a while back that singer-songwriter Derek Webb has embarked on a year-long album project entitled Democracy Vol. 1.  Webb invited fans who bought special editions of his last albumStockholm Syndrome to vote on songs that they would like him to cover.  He will then release an MP3 every month in 2010 to complete the project.  The last two months have been incredible additions.  Check out his covers of “Chicago” by Sufjan Stevens and “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” by Gnarls Barkley below.  Sign up to receive the songs HERE.

NEW MUSIC: Janelle Monáe

i first saw Janelle Monáe in a video called TIGHT ROPE. 

I loved it. her new album just came out.

The songs zip gleefully from genre to genre, mostly grounded in R&B and funk, but spinning out into rap, pastoral British folk, psychedelic rock, disco, cabaret, cinematic scores, and whatever else strikes her fancy. It's about as bold as mainstream music gets, marrying the world-building possibilities of the concept album to the big tent genre-mutating pop of Michael Jackson and Prince in their prime.

A REVIEW AND A STREAM

The ArchAndroid

new sage album & a beautiful first single

download the new single: [BEST OF TIMES]
(it's pretty stunning - the composer who did the soundtrack for the film Amelie)
  
i've been drawn to his work for so long now. whether i'm in agreement with him on a subject or not - his honesty is always refreshing. we need more of this. 


new sage francis album entitled LI(F)E: the record drops on may 11th, 2010 and features music that was written and/or performed by Califone, Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Chris Walla of Death Cab for Cutie, Tim Fite, Calexico, DeVotchKa, Yann Tiersen, Buck 65 and more. The album was produced by Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Iron & Wine.) 


The cover art was done by formerly local artist and illustrator Shepard Fairey

http://www.sagefrancis.net/

new music: freelance whales

i'm going to see them tonight.
they seem accessible and smart. 
i just started listening to them - we'll see if they hold up.
i'm going to see them on record store day at rainbow books and music.


*i added the song STARRING in the 'record of the day' window to the right.


below is a video.


Freelance Whales - Generator 2nd Floor

Freelance Whales | MySpace Music Videos

sigur ros meets mgmt

sigur rós frontman jónsi stopped by bbc radio 1's live lounge this weekend to play a session. one of the two songs he played was a cover of mgmt's "time to pretend", rendered as a sad, florid piano lament.

  

and... jonsi's new, absolutely incredible looking new tour - get into this.

new music: matt morris

new artist matt morris and bgv's from justin timberlake and chad sexton on guitar. i can't speak for the rest of the record but this song is solid. the lyrics in the second verse are especially beautiful:

...She heard heaven is invite only preserved for Christian soldiers

Not unwed girls living in the city asking for change from strangers

But father said Jesus loves her even though she never married

God loves her more than the Christians do,

She's part of his holy bloodline

She got saved in her bloodline

The price he paid for the bloodline...

watch here: bloodline

bed walk

white stripes doc

thrice and brand new

- a new thrice of video.
- two live (mellow) versions of songs from brand new's daisy record.

Brand New "At The Bottom" (Live In Studio)

i think jesse sounds like kurt cobain circa mtv unplugged.

Brand New - Bought A Bride (Daisy Session)

thrice - from the new "beggars" record.
In Exile

Thrice MySpace Music Videos

grizzly bear in a church.

click the full screen button (its cutoff to the right)

new sufjan

video from the from the front row at a recent sufjan show.

not exactly chicago part II.
much more you are the blood.
into the breakbeats and electro-jazz section.

sufjan and the brooklyn-queens expressway

Back in November 2007, Sufjan Stevens unveiled a multimedia performance inspired by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway called "The BQE" (which i was on last weekend). By all accounts, it was an over-the-top affair with an orchestra, artsy footage of the highway, and hula hoops. And now, Sufjan is putting out a purchase-able "BQE" package to satisfy bloodthirsty fans still waiting for his official follow-up to Illinois, which-- believe it or not-- came out four years ago this month.

Due out October 20 in the U.S. on Asthmatic Kitty (October 19 in the UK via Rough Trade), "The BQE" set is not a throw away-- it really may have taken him a couple years to put this thing together. The regular edition includes a CD of the show's soundtrack, a DVD of Brooklyn-Queen Expressway footage that accompanied the original performance (not a film of the performance itself), a 40-page booklet with liner notes and photos, and-- wait for it-- a stereoscopic 3D View-Master reel! Finally, a reason to dig that old View-Master out of the attic. (pitchfork)

THE BQE- A Film By Sufjan Stevens from Asthmatic Kitty on Vimeo.

Interlude I—Dream Sequence in Subi Circumnavigation from Asthmatic Kitty on Vimeo.

crepes

// jay-z and beyonce at a grizzly bear show. it's just...interesting (sweet)




// a video from dead weather.





// one my favorite sigur ros videos. one of my favorite pieces of art. beautiful. i can't embed it... click here

ryan adams and gorf

ryan has a column about video games, "Long Player With D. R. Adams", on the blog the awl. The first offering concerns an ancient and fairly obscure arcade game called Gorf, but it's more of a long ramble, with digressions about Danzig and Bruce Willis and the impending apocalypse.

Long Player from The Awl on Vimeo.

new music [radiohead?]

NEW THRICE RECORD
beggars - its beautiful.

NEW BRAND NEW SINGLE
at the bottom

NEW RADIOHEAD?
A mysterious song has floated out of the ether and onto the interwebs, and apparently it's a new Radiohead song. Consequence of Sound reports that "These Are My Twisted Words" appeared on the message board of the Radiohead fan site At Ease earlier today with no explanation. Though it sounds like a Radiohead song, it has not been officially confirmed.

beastie roots

seemed right...

an irish pub and lisa hannigan

grammy awards (updated)

[radiohead with the usc marching band]

[u2 being fun-slightly-ironic-u2]

diva is a female version of a...

the infamous mary b has made providence monthly's most eligible singles.

there isn't much online yet, so please visit your favorite newstand to read her likes, dislikes, and favorite divas... ha.

.

most importantly though, listen to the b's music.

MARY B's MUSIC