This song is taken from Future of Forestry’s second Christmas album, Advent Christmas EP, Vol 2. Eric Owyoung, the man behind FoF enjoys his Christmas songs and most years does a special Advent tour. This is his slightly less traditional cover of Joy To The World, starting in an experimental, electronica style and progressively becoming more traditional building up to the climax, where the song transitions into the hymn All Creatures Of Our God And King. Owyoung then wonderfully merges the hymns a second time and finishes this wonderful cover by reprising the original carol, what a musical journey!
Young Oceans are a band from Trinity Church, New York City, and this album, Advent, is their second release so far. Advent, is a Christmas album but rather than focusing on the birth of Jesus and the celebrations of our Saviour’s arrival, this album looks more towards the build up of excitement prior to the events in the New Testament. This song is a beautiful atmospherical soundscape with lyrics inspired and adapted from Isaiah 40:3-4:
“Let all who hear make way
And may these hearts prepare a place
For ‘God with Us’
Will come to save
And surely He shall comfort those he loves
And so we wait.”
As a truly inspiring, reflective and alternative soundtrack for the lead up to Christmas, I highly recommend getting your mittens on this EP.
Paper Route are an indie rock band from Tennessee, USA. The band is comprised of J.T. Daly, Chad Howat, and Gavin McDonald. Paper Route doesn’t claim to be a Christian band but all the members are Christian. This song is taken from their 2012 album The Peace Of Wild Things, this album sees the band again experimenting with different sounds, which is especially heard on this song, Born In Love. The lyrics are short and effective but it’s the bass that carries this song for me, creating a brilliant experimental electronica song with elements of deep house/chillstep.
“I’ve seen love
Move like a river
It’s taking me away”
This song is taken from Beautiful Eulogy’s debut album Satellite Kites, and features additional vocals by Josh Garrels. On this track Braille and Odd Thomas speak of how God sustains us through uncertain times and always remains our anchor.
All rights belong to Beautiful Eulogy.
Beautiful Eulogy are a Hip-Hop trio signed to the Christian Hip-Hop record label Humble Beast made up of Courtland Urbano, Odd Thomas and Braille. This is their first album together but each have done work separately prior to this release. The group have since produced the new Humble Beast release, Excellent by Propaganda.
Lyrics: (Chorus: Josh Garrels) Anchor of my soul, You sustain When I’m in the storm, You remain Good to me Good to me
(Verse 1: Braille) When it’s a quarter past midnight And the grey skies fade to black The waves splash and set me off track So my vessel might crash or collapse When I’m attacked And start wrestling with these bad Memories from my past I’m aware of my guilt, overwhelmed And the smell of my blood has the sharks That surround me cast under a spell They waited for me to fall but when I fell the water got Still And the blood that was spilled protects me It’s the same blood that cleansed me My only defense against my nemesis Now I can rest knowing that nothing can come against Me unless the Father gives consent Evil intentions will not disturb God’s purposes or interfere so Who shall I fear if my Anchor is secure? Learning to consider it pure joy when I’m facing tribulations Praising God instead of complaining or getting overtaken with bitterness Looking at the pages of the book of James and seeing The ways that God works through the trials to make us more Mature in our faith. It reminds me how desperate I am in This desert land, thirsty for your mercy and plan while you Give me the strength to stand. You’re my greatest pleasure, Yeah, no matter the weather I face, Lord you never forsake, My fragile life is safe under your sovereign grace.
(Chorus)
(Verse 2: Odd Thomas) At some point every human looks right in the eyes of agony And through the tragedy asks himself how can this happen to me? You might be the type with enough insight to hold On for your dear life but slip because your grip is not as Tight as I might like. You ain’t immune to it, naw, and if You true to yourself then you ain’t new to it Trusted in self, lusted and lured to it So when the darkness overwhelms me And the tide of life rises and swells “It is Well” is what compels me. When faced with adversity your truth Constantly reminds me that you command the seas with ease And with words you’re turning wind to breeze. It helps me To understand that we stand on solid rock not on sinking Sand. Through the providence of pain you perfect your plan. Predestined to be tested when the works and the Words of God cooperate and educate men in the great gift of Grace And Faith. And even though its obvious when my outlooks Ominous you’ve bound my heart and my conscience and gave me A constant calmness. So when the pain comes like rain from The parts of life that maintains its strain I can put my Trust in the hands that sustain. It’s profound that with All these sinking ships around me, He surrounds me and he Anchors me with his grace abounding.
Genre: Talk Music, Spoken Word, Experimental, Indie Hip-Hop
This song is taken from Listener’s 2010 release Wooden Heart.
All rights belong to Listener.
Listener is a talk music duo formed by Dan Smith and Christin Nelson in 2002. Their sound is hard to assign to a genre as it is a strange amalgamation of Indie Hip-Hop and Spoken Word and is unlike anything I’ve ever come across before. However, this unique blend forms a brilliant sound and you are captured by Dan’s vocals over the incredible music.
Lyrics: WOODEN HEART (sea of mist called skaidan) We’re all born to broken people on their most honest day of living and since that first breath… We’ll need grace that we’ve never given I’ve been haunted by standard red devils and white ghosts and it’s not only when these eyes are closed these lies are ropes that I tie down in my stomach, but they hold this ship together tossed like leaves in this weather and my dreams are sails that I point towards my true north, stretched thin over my rib bones, and pray that it gets better but it won’t won’t, at least I don’t believe it will… so I’ve built a wooden heart inside this iron ship, to sail these blood red seas and find your coasts. don’t let these waves wash away your hopes this war-ship is sinking, and I still believe in anchors pulling fist fulls of rotten wood from my heart, I still believe in saviors but I know that we are all made out of shipwrecks, every single board washed and bound like crooked teeth on these rocky shores so come on and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach come on and sew us together, tattered rags stained forever we only have what we remember
I am the barely living son of a woman and man who barely made it but we’re making it taped together on borrowed crutches and new starts we all have the same holes in our hearts… everything falls apart at the exact same time that it all comes together perfectly for the next step but my fear is this prison… that I keep locked below the main deck I keep a key under my pillow, it’s quiet and it’s hidden and my hopes are weapons that I’m still learning how to use right but they’re heavy and I’m awkward…always running out of fight so I’ve carved a wooden heart, put it in this sinking ship hoping it would help me float for just a few more weeks because I am made out of shipwrecks, every twisted beam lost and found like you and me scattered out on the sea so come on let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach come on and sew us together, just some tattered rags stained forever we only have what we remember
My throat it still tastes like house fire and salt water I wear this tide like loose skin, rock me to sea if we hold on tight we’ll hold each other together and not just be some fools rushing to die in our sleep all these machines will rust I promise, but we’ll still be electric shocking each other back to life Your hand in mine, my fingers in your veins connected our bones grown together inside our hands entwined, your fingers in my veins braided our spines grown stronger in time because are church is made out of shipwrecks from every hull these rocks have claimed but we pick ourselves up, and try and grow better through the change so come on yall and let’s wash each other with tears of joy and tears of grief and fold our lives like crashing waves and run up on this beach come on and sew us together, were just tattered rags stained forever we only have what we remember
