Seen and Unseen - How Mumford and friends explore life's instability

My latest article for Seen and Unseen is entitled 'How Mumford and friends explore life's instability' and explores how Mumford and Sons, together with similar bands, commune on fallibility, fear, grace, and love:

'“Serve God, love me, and mend” must rank as one of the more unexpected openings to a hugely popular album in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. A quote from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, it introduces us to the potent mix of Shakespearean and Biblical allusion and imagery to be found on Mumford and Sons debut album Sign No More.'

For more on Mumford and Sons see here and here. For more on music and faith see my co-authored book 'The Secret Chord'.

My first article for Seen and Unseen was 'Life is more important than art' which reviews the themes of recent art exhibitions that tackle life’s big questions and the roles creators take.

My second article 'Corinne Bailey Rae’s energised and anguished creative journey' explores inspirations in Detroit, Leeds and Ethiopia for Corinne Bailey Rae’s latest album, Black Rainbows, which is an atlas of capacious faith.

My third article was an interview with musician and priest Rev Simpkins in which we discussed how music is an expression of humanity and his faith.

My fourth article was a guide to the Christmas season’s art, past and present. Traditionally at this time of year “great art comes tumbling through your letterbox” so, in this article, I explore the historic and contemporary art of Christmas.

My fifth article was 'Finding the human amid the wreckage of migration'. In this article I interviewed Shezad Dawood about his multimedia Leviathan exhibition at Salisbury Cathedral where personal objects recovered from ocean depths tell a story of modern and ancient migrations.

My sixth article was 'The visionary artists finding heaven down here' in which I explored a tradition of visionary artists whose works shed light on the material and spiritual worlds.

My seventh article was 'How the incomer’s eye sees identity' in which I explain how curating an exhibition for Ben Uri Online gave me the chance to highlight synergies between ancient texts and current issues.

My eighth article was 'Infernal rebellion and the questions it asks' in which I interview the author Nicholas Papadopulos about his book The Infernal Word: Notes from a Rebel Angel.

My ninth article was 'A day, night and dawn with Nick Cave’s lyrics' in which I review Adam Steiner’s Darker With The Dawn — Nick Cave’s Songs Of Love And Death and explore whether Steiner's rappel into Cave’s art helps us understand its purpose.

My 10th article was 'Theresa Lola's poetical hope' about the death-haunted yet lyrical, joyful and moving poet for a new generation.

My 11th article was 'How to look at our world: Aaron Rosen interview', exploring themes from Rosen's book 'What Would Jesus See: Ways of Looking at a Disorienting World'.

My 12th article was 'Blake, imagination and the insight of God', exploring a new exhibition - 'William Blake's Universe at the Fitzwilliam Museum - which focuses on seekers of spiritual regeneration and national revival.

My 13th article 'Matthew Krishanu: painting childhood' was an interview with Matthew Krishanu on his exhibition 'The Bough Breaks' at Camden Art Centre.

My 14th article was entitled 'Art makes life worth living' and explored why society, and churches, need the Arts.

My 15th article was entitled 'The collective effervescence of sport's congregation' and explored some of the ways in which sport and religion have been intimately entwined throughout history

My 16th article was entitled 'Paradise cottage: Milton reimagin’d' and reviewed the ways in which artist Richard Kenton Webb is conversing with the blind poet in his former home (Milton's Cottage, Chalfont St Giles).

My 17th article was entitled 'Controversial art: how can the critic love their neighbour?'. It makes suggestions of what to do when confronted with contentious culture.

My 18th article was an interview entitled 'Art, AI and apocalypse: Michael Takeo Magruder addresses our fears and questions'. In the interview the digital artist talks about the possibilities and challenges of artificial intelligence.

My 19th article was entitled 'Dark, sweet and subtle: recovered music orientates us'. In the article I highlight alt-folk music seeking inspiration from forgotten hymns.

My 20th article was entitled 'Revisiting Amazing Grace inspires new songs'. In the article I highlight folk musicians capturing both the barbaric and the beautiful in the hymn Amazing Grace and Christianity's entanglement with the transatlantic slave trade more generally.

My 21st article was entitled 'James MacMillan’s music of tranquility and discord'. In the article I noted that the composer’s music contends both the secular and sacred.

My 22nd article was a book review on Nobody's Empire by Stuart Murdoch. 'Nobody's Empire: A Novel is the fictionalised account of how ... Murdoch, lead singer of indie band Belle and Sebastian, transfigured his experience of Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) through faith and music.'

My 23rd article was entitled 'Rock ‘n’ roll’s long dance with religion'. The article explores how popular music conjures sacred space.

My 24th article was an interview with Alastair Gordon on the artist’s attention which explores why the overlooked and everyday capture the creative gaze.

My 25th article was about Stanley Spencer’s seen and unseen world and the artist’s child-like sense of wonder as he saw heaven everywhere.

My 26th article was entitled 'The biblical undercurrent that the Bob Dylan biopics missed' and in it I argue that the best of Dylan’s work is a contemporary Pilgrim, Dante or Rimbaud on a compassionate journey.

My 27th article was entitled 'Heading Home: a pilgrimage that breaks out beauty along the way' and focuses on a film called 'Heading Home' which explores how we can learn a new language together as we travel.

My 28th article was entitled 'Annie Caldwell: “My family is my band”' and showcased a force of nature voice that comes from the soul.

My 29th article for Seen and Unseen was entitled 'Why sculpt the face of Christ?' and explored how, in Nic Fiddian Green’s work, we feel pain, strength, fear and wisdom.

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Mumford and Sons - Malibu.

International Times: The Conundrum

My latest set of album reviews to be published by International Times covers recent albums by Deacon Blue, Mumford and Sons, and Andrew Rumsey:

'Knowing how best to develop your sound as you progress as a band or musician is a conundrum which many musicians do not solve. The best, make significant changes in style while retaining their core interests, while others continue to plough the same furrow, often with diminishing rewards.

Deacon Blue, after two hiatuses, are in the full flush of a late flowering, Mumford and Sons are returning to their original base after a somewhat unconvincing reinvention, and Andrew Rumsey is on his second album in a similar style.'

For more on Deacon Blue see here and for Mumford and Sons see here. For more on music and faith see my co-authored book 'The Secret Chord'.

My earlier pieces for IT are an interview with the poet Chris Emery, an interview with Jago Cooper, Director of the the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, a profile of Bill Fay, plus reviews of: 'Breaking Lines' at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, albums by Joy Oladokun and Michael Kiwanaku; 'Nolan's Africa' by Andrew Turley; Mavis Staples in concert at Union Chapel; T Bone Burnett's 'The Other Side' and Peter Case live in Leytonstone; Helaine Blumenfeld's 'Together' exhibition, 'What Is and Might Be and then Otherwise' by David Miller; 'Giacometti in Paris' by Michael Peppiatt, the first Pissabed Prophet album - 'Zany in parts, moving in others, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more unusual, inspired & profound album this year. ‘Pissabed Prophet’ will thrill, intrigue, amuse & inspire' - and 'Religion and Contemporary Art: A Curious Accord', a book which derives from a 2017 symposium organised by the Association of Scholars of Christianity in the History of Art.

Several of my short stories have been published by IT including three about Nicola Ravenscroft's EarthAngel sculptures (then called mudcubs), which we exhibited at St Andrew's Wickford in 2022. The first story in the series is 'The Mudcubs and the O Zone holes'. The second is 'The Mudcubs and the Clean-Up King', and the third is 'The mudcubs and the Wall'. My other short stories to have been published by International Times are 'The Black Rain', a story about the impact of violence in our media, 'The New Dark Ages', a story about principles and understandings that are gradually fading away from our modern societies, and 'The curious glasses', a story based on the butterfly effect.

IT have also published several of my poems, beginning with The ABC of creativity, which covers attention, beginning and creation, Also published have been three poems from my 'Five Trios' series. 'Barking' is about St Margaret’s Barking and Barking Abbey and draws on my time as a curate at St Margaret's. 'Bradwell' is a celebration of the history of the Chapel of St Peter-on-the-Wall, the Othona Community, and of pilgrimage to those places. Broomfield in Essex became a village of artists following the arrival of Revd John Rutherford in 1930. His daughter, the artist Rosemary Rutherford, also moved with them and made the vicarage a base for her artwork including paintings and stained glass. Then, Gwynneth Holt and Thomas Bayliss Huxley-Jones moved to Broomfield in 1949 where they shared a large studio in their garden and both achieved high personal success. 'Broomfield' reviews their stories, work, legacy and motivations.

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Andrew Rumsey - The Memorial Service Orders Of Friends.

The upside-down Kingdom of God

At my first training weekend as a curate the then Bishop of Barking, David Hawkins, performed a handstand to demonstrate the way in which Jesus, through his teaching in the beatitudes, turns our understanding of life upside down. As opposed to the survival of the fittest or looking after No. 1, the Kingdom of God, as it is described in the Beatitudes, is a place of happiness for those who know they are spiritually poor, a place of comfort for those who mourn, a place of receptivity for those who are humble, a place of satisfaction for those whose greatest desire is to do what God requires, a place of mercy for those who are merciful, a place in which God is seen by the pure in heart, a place in which those who work for peace are called God’s children, and a place which belongs to those who are persecuted because they do what God requires.

I've been reminded of this by a post at The Jesus Question about an artwork called Jesus Striped and Stripped by Cedric Baxter.

Victoria Emily Jones writes that, 'Every year since 2008 (excepting last year, due to ministerial transitions), Catherine Czerw has curated a Lenten art exhibition on behalf of Wesley Uniting Church in Perth, Australia, called Stations of the Cross. She selects fifteen Australian artists to participate, each one choosing a station to depict. Jesus Striped and Stripped was Cedric Baxter's 2011 contribution for Station 10, traditionally articulated as "Jesus is stripped of his garments."'

'Baxter's tenth station captures Jesus mid-tumble, naked and abused and down on his way to death, but what Christians know and glory in, especially during the Easter season, is that he's circling back. He's turning a cartwheel! The upside downness of Jesus in this image challenges us to look at Passion Week with the right perspective: as a journey that brings Christ low only to raise him up.'

Baxter's image would have been perfect for a short liturgy which I prepared a while back for the Barking Area Team meeting and subsequently used at a Deanery Synod and at St John's Seven Kings. This liturgy began with an opening reflection taken from St Francis of Assisi by G. K. Chesterton:

'[Saint] Francis, at the time … when he disappeared into the prison or the dark cavern, underwent a reversal of a certain psychological kind … The man who went into the cave was not the man who came out again … He looked at the world as differently from other men as if he had come out of that dark hole walking on his hands … If a man saw the world hanging upside down, with all the trees and towers hanging head downwards as in a pool, one effect would be to emphasise the idea of dependence … It would make vivid the Scriptural text which says that God has hanged the world upon nothing.'

This image of coming out of a cave walking on our hands was used by Mumford & Sons in their song entitled The Cave. I adapted this to form the opening response:

May we come out of our cave walking on our hands and see the world hanging upside down. May we understand dependence when we know the maker's hand. Amen.

The prayer of penitence began by borrowing some phrases from Donald B. Kraybill: Jesus, you startle us as paradox, irony and surprise permeate your teachings flipping our expectations upside down: the least are the greatest; adults become like children; the religious miss the heavenly banquet; the immoral receive forgiveness and blessing. Things aren’t like we think they should be. We’re baffled and perplexed; uncertain whether to laugh or cry. Again and again, turning our world upside down, your kingdom surprises us and so we pray now to see your world and our lives as you see them.

I put these together with some of T. Bone Burnett's lyrics from Trap Door. The responses were:

Lord, forgive our knowingness, our grasping, our comfort and our self-satisfaction.

Lord, forgive our attempts to be loved, our pride, our pleasure-seeking and our leisure-seeking. As we turn to you, turn our lives upside down and bless us with poverty, with grief, with meekness, with hunger, with mercy, with purity, with peacemaking, with persecution and with your upside down kingdom. Amen.

The prayers of intercession were as follows: 

God of Israel, the God of the Exodus, you hear the cry of slaves and deliver true liberation. New regimes which leave the old order in place, the bullies in power, the greedy with their unjust gains, and which have nothing to say to the oppressed are not good and are not news. Having heard the subversive nature of your kingdom announcement, we pray for an upside-down kingdom that will deliver true liberation.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.

It is the humble poor who know their need of you and those who have nothing who know they need everything. So we pray for those moments when we and others become poor in spirit, bereaved, meek, hungry, thirsty, and turn faces to you looking for salvation. Open doors in us and others that gain and comfort have locked tight.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.

The Gospel announcement, your salvation, is truly comprehensive, is truly for all, because it is offered to losers, by circumstance or choice. The poor have no means of becoming rich but the rich have within themselves the possibility of becoming poor. There is nothing that we don’t have that will bar our entry to this upside-down kingdom and so we pray to be rid of what we do have that your kingdom may truly come to all.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever. Amen.

The liturgy ended with Gerard Kelly's Let Your Kingdom Come.

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T. Bone Burnett - Trap Door.

Electric Eden and the New Folk Revival

Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music is an acclaimed history of the evolution of British folk music. Author Rob Young has a fascination with the roots of English folk music and its ties to the British countryside. For the most part the book "is a surefooted guide to the various tangled paths the English folk song has since been taken down by classicists, collectors, revivalists, iconoclasts, pagans, psychedelic visionaries, punks and purists."

The book is in some ways a search for the national psyche which Young notes has been shaped by a "wrestling for possession between competing religious doctrines, heathen, pagan and Christian." Young finds more of interest in folk-rock which is heathen or pagan but, interestingly, he does value the work of Bill Fay, the Biblical references which abound in C.O.B's Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart, and also includes a brief survey of '70's Jesus Music noting that "there were a few groups - After the Fire, Caedmon, Canaan, Cloud, Bryn Haworth, Meet Jesus Music, Narnia, Nutshell, Parchment, Presence, Reynard, Trinity Folk, Water into Wine Band and 11.59 - which managed to make a music that has lasting value, a kind of Eucharistic-progressive sound that sits comfortably with the better acid folk of the period." He highlights, as being of particular interest, Caedmon's self-titled 1978 album, the Water into Wine band's Hill Climbing for Beginners, Bob and Carole Pegg's And Now It Is So Early with Sydney Carter, Carter's A Folk Passion, and the Reflection Records compilation Sounds of Salvation. 

Young acknowledges that set against "the Dada venom of punk, the angular edges of post-punk and new wave and the plastic seductions of New Romanticism," the "irrelevant, parlous state of folk music in the late 1970s" was revealed. From this point on the book loses focus as Young indulges his liking for Kate Bush, David Sylvian, Talk Talk and Julian Cope without (except in the case of Cope) demonstrating their links to what has gone before. In doing so, Young overlooks the links between punk's political attack and folk's role as the voice of the common people; a connection that Billy Bragg clearly recognised and utilised.   

More recently, Young was one of those interviewed along with Bragg, for Get Folked: The Great Folk Revival which takes up the story Young told and explores the current resurgence in folk's popularity:

"Something incredible has been happening in the music scene over the last few years. Folk - a musical tradition with roots in the pre-electric world - is now becoming the new 21st-century pop phenomenon. Is it the antidote to manufactured music, the new punk, or simply evidence of the enduring appeal of this age-old musical form? This programme features first-hand testimony and intimate, specially shot musical performances from a cross-generational cast of legends, new and old. Richard Thompson, The Lumineers, Jake Bugg, Frank Turner, Akala, Donovan, Martin Carthy, The Unthanks, Alt-J, Newton Faulkner, Seth Lakeman, Bob Geldof and Ade Edmondson are among the contributors."

In introducing the new Folk Revival, the programme references visually the influence of Communion artists including Mumford and Sons and Laura Marling. Although not included in the documentary per se, some of these artists, such as Mumford and Sons and Michael Kiwanuka, continue to tap the Christian influence which, as Young notes in Electric Eden, can be found as a strand within English folk music.

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C.O.B. - Martha And Mary.

Fear, fallibility and faith in Mumford and Sons

I’ve been reading ‘The Incredible Rise of Mumford & Sons’ by Chloé Govan which is interesting primarily because of the perspective from which she writes about the influence of Christian faith and upbringing on the band.

I’ve posted before about the way in which Biblical references in song lyrics are often either overlooked or misinterpreted because of misunderstandings about Christianity itself (see, for example, here and here). Govan does not fall into the first trap in that she correctly identifies many of the Biblical/Christian references in the songs of Mumford & Sons but she does use commonly held misconceptions of the Christian faith which then affect her interpretations of the faith as it explored or expressed in these songs.

In addition, she also makes the commonly held but naive assumption that first person lyrics are directly autobiographical and confessional. It was this assumption that rightly annoyed Bob Dylan when journalists wrote as though they knew him by means of his songs and I can easily imagine Marcus Mumford, if he had read this biography (which he probably has not), feeling similar annoyance at someone presuming to know his personal spiritual journey through her interpretation of his lyrics.

The key misconception of Christianity as explored and expressed in these songs which Govan holds is that following God involves the surrender of free will and individuality while true freedom involves the full expression of personal choice. She therefore equates belief with submission and non-belief with freedom and, as a result, interprets all references to freedom within these lyrics in terms of this framework. Religion is a set of rules providing a comfort blanket for the immature, while maturity is seen in the assertion of an independent self.

Govan’s use of this equation is particularly evident in her analysis of ‘Roll Away Your Stone’ which she reads as a dialogue between Mumford and God in which Marcus expresses his frustration at God’s control over him. While clearly structured as a conversation, ‘Roll Away Your Stone’ does not actually identify who is being addressed as ‘you’ within the song, so Govan’s suggestion that the ‘you’ being addressed is God is an assumption rather than a statement. The song begins with the protagonist suggesting that both he and his conversation partner lift the lid on their souls, although the protagonist is wary of doing so fearing the demons within. The conversation develops by means of the response that grace is not about the efforts we make but the welcome we receive when we turn to God. On this basis, the protagonist then says that he will give up his desires and mark this moment at which his soul has become passionate for God. Having arrived at this confident assertion of faith backed by the intensity of the musical arrangement, the song then ends on a note of ambiguous prevarication.

There certainly are tensions explored in these songs in relation to the demands and challenges of faith but the polarity around which these revolve is not submission versus freedom so much as fear versus faith. The protagonist in ‘Roll Away Your Stone’ is afraid firstly of the demons within and secondly of the demands which faith may bring. This is the debate that the protagonist seems that have within himself in ‘Little Lion Man’ i.e. the extent to which he does or does not have the courage of his convictions.

All this is set out in the title track and opening song of the first album, which thereby sets both the ground that the album explores and the tone in which it does so. ‘Sigh No More’ begins with confident assertions of faith then moves into acknowledgement of human fallibility and prevarication summed up in the phrase that “Man is giddy thing” before asserting that love (i.e. God’s love) does not enslave but is freeing, enabling those who know it to become the people they were meant to be. The song ends with a prayer to see the beauty which will come when the protagonist’s heart is truly aligned with God’s love. Throughout the album the overriding concern is that personal fallibilities and fears – the darkness within – will prevent grace from having its full effect and the beauty of alignment with love from being fully realised.

Govan's discussion of the Christian faith of Mumford's parents is primarily drawn from press cuttings and her understanding of their story and beliefs is undercut by factual inaccuracies which include Sandy Millar as a female minister and the muddling of the Exodus with Herod's killing of the firstborn at Bethlehem, so that Moses is described as leading people out of the grip of evil people like Herod into glory. 

Among the undeniable flaws of the evangelical sect to which Mumford's parents belong (i.e. the Vineyard Churches) which Govan cites are the response of the Roman Catholic Church to Galileo in the 1600s and Archbishop Ussher's 17th century chronology of the history of the world. While the Vineyard Churches can, no doubt, be criticised on all kinds of levels they had nothing to do with either of these episodes in Church history which have been brought into the picture because they are supposedly conclusive proof that Christianity as a whole is opposed to science. 

Govan's discussion is, therefore, typical of the misunderstandings and misconceptions which plague contemporary discussion of Christianity and which lead many to dismiss the faith without ever actually engaging with its beliefs and practices. Govan's discussion of Christianity has significance as it flags up the size of the task (in part, self-induced) which faces the Church today, while those looking for an accessible and more nuanced review of the actual historical record in relation to the historical incidents cited by Govan could perhaps read 6 Modern Myths about Christianity & Western Civilisation by Philip Sampson.

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Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More.

The 10 albums that I've enjoyed most in 2012

Here are the 10 albums (in no particular order) that I've got hold of and enjoyed the most in 2012:

Taken from the Latin and literally meaning 'within the walls', Intra Muros is the album of "spooky" Christian music Bryan MacLean was completing at the time of his death. Due to 'the great strength of songs like the amazing Love Grows In Me and My Eyes Are Open', Intra Muros 'stands as fine testament to the ability of a great songwriter.'

The darkness, loss and wandering that suffuse Babel is fused with the transcendent sound and anthemic choruses that Mumford and Sons conjure up with banjo, double bass, guitar, keyboards and vocals.

The Bob Dylan of Tempest, 'A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall' and so many other songs, is the faithful watchmen who sees the storm of the apocalypse on the horizon and who warns his people before it is too late. Tempest is, therefore, a profoundly religious album.

Bill Fay’s songs on Life is People are simply astonishing - simple and melodic yet with unusual imagery and insights delivered with gravity and grace. 'Cosmic Concerto (Life Is People)' is a highlight from a collection of stand-out tracks; a celebration of the miracle of ordinary life, the infinite variation in each human face, which stirs his soul.

The Laughing Stalk - Woven Hand’s David Eugene Edwards says, 'The myths of our country are in the songs. The untold stories and gaps in history books are in the songs – our recollection is preserved in this music. Those songs as well as the stories that my parents told me, the bible and the books I read, all this is the foundation of my imagination of America.'

The fluid, flowing lines of Aradhna’s Namaste Saté possess the something more that comes from an ability to inhabit and then transcend the spirit of your sources.

Wrecking Ball is a masterful summation of Bruce Springsteen's strengths and an inspirational call to real hope in the face of genuine despair. The album is propelled forward by the anger of its storytelling songs before seguing through 'Wrecking Ball' into songs of hopeful fortitude for which Springsteen appropriates the language of faith and the imagery of the Bible.

Home Again - Michael Kiwanuka, who has been compared to Bill Withers and Al Green, has an "honest, unpretentious and raw style" that "is straight to the matter, unspoilt soul music at it’s best." Alexis Petridis wrote that "Kiwanuka addresses The Lord with such frequency that you picture Him hiding behind the sofa and pretending to be out. At first, it just sounds like a lyrical tic, but by the time you reach I'm Getting Ready – "to believe" – it's pretty clear that it runs substantially deeper than that."

One of the things I love most about the work of Leonard Cohen is his self-deprecating humour. There is real self awareness and humility on Old Ideas combined with the distance and irony of setting many of the lines ostensibly about himself in the third person. Leonard the man speaks to Leonard the persona. All performers seem to need to create a stage persona that is in some way separate from the reality of who the person actually is. On this basis, ‘Going Home’ is to do with the experience of leaving the stage in order to experience reality - "Going home / Behind the curtain / Going home / Without the costume / That I wore."

Gungor’s Ghosts upon the Earth is a set of songs for the jaded in which the phrase "fearfully and wonderfully and beautifully made" sums up much of what is experienced on this album. "All praises to the one who made it all and finds it beautiful". Michael Gungor writes, "As the various vocal parts circle the listener’s head when the band’s last chord fades out, one can imagine hearing the voices of all of these elements of creation (moon, sun, earth, wind, etc.) singing the praises of their creator."

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Woven Hand - As Wool.

Babel - the sound of transcendent music

Second albums are tricky affairs and, despite three years of preparation, Mumford and Sons' Babel is no exception.

One issue is that what surprised on the first album is now familiar territory when it comes to the second. Hence, in part, the plethora of comments in reviews that Babel is Sigh No More part II. That is only partly the case. Negatively, there is no equivalent surprise on Babel to the shock of Sigh No More's opening lines, 'Serve God, love me and mend ...' which set up the then unfashionable combination of driven folk strumming with spiritual insight which characterised that album. Babel retains the use of religious language but has less to offer in the way of those insightful aphorisms, couplets and verses which leapt out of so many of the songs on Sigh No More. This, combined with its relentlessly first person narratives, means that Babel, although consistently using the imagery of darkness and light, has less contrast, less light and shade, than Sigh No More.

Babel is generally a darker album with its repeated themes of leaving, loss and wandering set primarily in first person strained romances. That is not the full picture however as several of the songs seem both more powerful and more logical as addresses to God rather than a human lover. I'm thinking here particularly of 'Hopeless Wanderer' - a prayer for constancy having found the right road - and 'Below My Feet' - a prayer for ongoing learning and service having received the message from Jesus that all is well.

The darkness, loss and wandering that suffuse Babel is then fused with the transcendent sound and anthemic choruses that Mumford and Sons conjure up with banjo, double bass, guitar, keyboards and vocals. In this way the songs, despite their content, provide Mumford Moments - what the Urban Dictionary describes as moments when you become really engrossed with and entranced by the transcendent music of Mumford and Sons bringing on a feeling of euphoria or spirituality. The essence of Mumford and Sons' sound and success is this sense of transcendence which they create  The restlessness of which they write is the precursor to the search for participation in something greater than they know. That is transcendence and their euphoric music achieves this even when the words they sing focus more on restlessness than rising. The religious language they use and the spiritual insights they bring serve to ground this transcendent sound in the search for something more so that their songs are not simply motivational or exhortatory but instead sound and sense are one and the same.

Written Pre-Mumfords, these words from Bill Friskics-Warren in his book I'll Take You There: Pop Music and the Urge for Transcendence are nevertheless relevant:

'Records that articulate an urge for transcendence, and a great number of them do, are not pegged as easily as the bins of retailers might suggest. Less the domains of genres like rock, soul, and rap, they might more appropriately be termed "transcendental music" - music that, regardless of stylistic signature or marketing niche, points beyond itself, urging listeners to look past the mundane and to see themselves and their striving in a new light. Those who make transcendental music understand how this works only too well. They typically have had their worlds opened up in much the same way. Johnny Cash, who struggled, as he sang, to "subdue the beast within," was drawn to the existential conflict in the songs of Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson, just as Dylan and Kristofferson were enthralled by the work of the Beat Poets and the French symbolists before them. Al Green, a soul singer who eventually became a preacher, identified with the spiritual desolation of Hank Williams's "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry." Polly Harvey, a post-punk, art-school dropout from rural England, sought cathartic renewal in the blues, much as her Irish counterpart Van Morrison first did some thirty years before her.

Records of a transcendental bent, those made by people trying to get higher - and often, to take us there as well - are not peripheral to the history of popular music; they lie at the heart of it. The restlessness that they express often speaks to people as profoundly as what they hear in church or at their mosque or synagogue - more profoundly at times, especially lately, as many wrestle with questions of providence in our seemingly more volatile world. Countless people in the United States, for example, looked to Bruce Springsteen and his album The Rising for comfort and insight after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. In today's post-Christian milieu - a world defined increasingly by multiculturalism and globalization - pop music frequently serves as a substitute for conventional religious observance, or at least provides spiritual clarity and guidance where it might be lacking. Pop music has for decades possessed the power, much as liturgies and sacred music have for centuries, to transport the human spirit and serve as a vehicle for the transcendence we seek.'

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Mumford and Sons - Below My Feet.

New music

Here are some new albums that I'm looking forward to hearing:

Babel - Mumford & Sons: 'Opening with a blistering banjo intro, the title track is a statement of intent. Marcus Mumford spits, "I know my weakness, know my voice. And I believe in grace and choice'". As the chorus hits, the biblical allusions that inspired the album title kick in.' (NME)

Life Is People - Bill Fay: 'Aside from Fay's plaintive cover of Wilco's Jesus Etc, Life Is People also continues with the lyrical themes established back in 1969-70 ... "They need space to convey," he stresses, "but, in a simple way, biblical prophecy. Not in some extreme or fanatical way but fundamentally, that this world - in the hands of different leaders, competing with each other economically - it can't carry on. It's belief in a change. There's comfort in that. I'm not so sure how you could handle the world if you didn't have that. It's God's world, yet we walk around as if it's ours."' (Mojo)

Tempest - Bob Dylan: 'When Dylan convened his band at Jackson Browne's Groove Masters studios in Santa Monica, he's said it was his intention to make a 'religious' album ... The testing of belief in extreme circumstances is a recurring theme ... the charred landscape that much of Tempest occupies ... a forlorn sort of place, populated by the displaced and the lost, to who Dylan gives poignant voice.' (Uncut)

The Laughing Stalk - Woven Hand: 'The myths of our country are in the songs. The untold stories and gaps in history books are in the songs – our recollection is preserved in this music. Those songs as well as the stories that my parents told me, the bible and the books I read, all this is the foundation of my imagination of America. But I do not see myself as a keeper of tradition. I rather am a craftsman who on a daily basis does what he does best: singing and playing guitar. That’s the only thing I've learned. I am following the music.' (David Eugene Edwards)

The Hipsters - Deacon Blue: 'Judging by the content of this album, which contains such portions of well-bred pop as Stars and the harmony-laden Turn, there's enough creativity left to ensure that few hearing these songs for the first time on the band's 25th Anniversary Tour will be disappointed.' (Mojo)

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Bill Fay - Time Of The Last Persecution.

A novel and an album

The "perfectly good man" in the title of Patrick Gale's latest novel is Barnaby Thomas, the priest of a rural parish in Gale's native Cornwall. Salley Vickers writes that through the novel we follow Thomas' 'life, spiritual and psychological, from his own perspective but also from that of the various characters who are germane to that life.' Julie Myerson suggests that:

'Gale's dog-collared protagonist is far more complex – and sinful – than we originally suspect. And, far from being a dull cipher, he is also that rare thing – a fictional character so charismatically ambiguous, so physically, spiritually and emotionally alive, that you feel you could reach out and ruffle his hair. Forget what they say about the Devil. There's a pretty good tune being tapped out here in these Anglican pages.'

Vickers concludes that the 'strength of this novel lies in its capacity to convey ordinariness authentically: ordinary love, ordinary failure, ordinary belief, ordinary, everyday tragedy, which of course in its particular manifestation is never "ordinary".'

'Michael Kiwanuka is the BBC Sound of 2012 winner ... Kiwanuka's soul had a new rootsy-folk direction, drawing influences from John Martyn alongside Pop Staples and Bill Withers and it wasn't long before his unique voice had attracted the attention of Paul Butler from the Bees, who took him to the Isle of Wight to work on EP Tell Me The Tale. Soon Communion Records had signed the 24 year-old up and Adele had invited the Londoner on her landmark 2011 tour.'

Alexis Petridis writes that:

'If such a thing as a racing certainty still exists in these turbulent times for rock and pop, then Michael Kiwanuka's debut album may well be it. It's always unwise to make predictions about these things, but there's no getting around the fact that the 24-year-old's music ticks a lot of boxes on the list headed Things People Seem to Like These Days ...

Those old enough to remember an era when British rock music, like the Blair administration, didn't really do God might raise an eyebrow at how much of Home Again seems to deal with Christianity. Kiwanuka addresses The Lord with such frequency that you picture Him hiding behind the sofa and pretending to be out. At first, it just sounds like a lyrical tic, but by the time you reach I'm Getting Ready – "to believe" – it's pretty clear that it runs substantially deeper than that.

There was a time when an album so explicitly God-bothering might have risked turning mainstream UK buyers off, although Kiwanuka might reasonably point out that most of the music that inspired him was exactly the same. Perhaps more pertinently, you could add that Mumford and Sons' links to evangelical Christianity and "awake my soul, you were made to meet your maker" lyrics have done nothing to harm their popularity in the UK and may well have contributed to it in the US: there are certainly a lot of American bloggers excited by the band's ability to provide "moments of worship" in their music. Back home, top of the list of Things People Seem to Like These Days is a certain earnestness and sincerity in their music: Home Again ticks that box as well.'

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Michael Kiwanuka - I'm Getting Ready.

Mumford and Sons: The Enemy

Bath and Malmesbury

I've had a few days away in Bath and the surrounding area driving to a soundtrack of Mojo's latest cover CD, a complitation of Communion artists.
Communion was born in the Summer of 2006 at London’s Notting Hill Arts Club. Founded by Ben Lovett (Mumford and Sons), former Cherbourg bassist Kevin Jones, and acclaimed producer Ian Grimble, it quickly grew into a flourishing community of musicians and fans alike, providing a first independent platform for the freshest young artists on London’s circuit and beyond. The monthly night has now seen the likes of Noah and the Whale, Laura Marling, Mumford and Sons, JJ Pistolet and Peggy Sue all grace the stage from the very start of their fledgling careers. Communion Records was founded in September 2009 priding itself on creating a close working family in which to allow artists to develop at their own pace.

Bath's Fringe Festival added additional interest to our visit with several of the photos above taken in the FAB at the Officer's Club exhibitions. I also enjoyed seeing paintings by Cecil Collins and Graham Sutherland at the Victoria Art Gallery and the new extension to the Holburne Gallery (see photo above) but the exhibition highlight was definitely Helpless Angels at the bo.lee gallery which saw paintings by Fran Williams supplemented by the angel sculptures of other gallery artists. Williams' paintings deal in primal light-dark contrasts to suggest an emergent sense of the angelic in her distressed characters. Look out for the gallery's Shadowside London exhibition from 13th - 18th June at Blackall Studios Shoreditch.

Other forthcoming exhibitions that should be of interest include The Acts of the Apostles by Ulrich Lindow at Malmesbury Abbey from 19th June throughout the summer and Mark Angus: Flying Figures at the Victoria Art Gallery from 23 July - 2 October.

Sculptor Ulrich Lindow works in northern Germany near Malmesbury's twin town of Niebüll. His The Acts of the Apostles installation is described as "a dramatic re-enactment of the events narrated in the New Testament." Lindow has imagined a red glow from the tongues of flame reflected in the colouration of the rough hewn faces of his disciples (see photos above).

Originally from Bath, Mark Angus is one of Europe's best stained glass artists. His stunning work for churches and cathedrals in England and Germany is well known, but his freestanding glass figures - glowingly coloured diving and backlit figures exploring the theme of Eternal Youth - go on public view for the first time in the exhibition at the Victoria Art Gallery.

While in Malmesbury I also saw the Photographic Exhibition in the Town Hall, which includes excellent work by Betsy Little and Fred Goudie among others, and found a secondhand copy of Messenger of Beauty: The Life and Visionary Art of Nicholas Roerich.  Roerich was a Russian-born artist whose paintings explore the mythic origins, the natural beauty, and the spiritual strivings of humanity and of the world.

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Marcus Foster - Circle in the Square.

Prayer for the upside-down kingdom of God

Here is some liturgy that I prepared for today's meeting of the Barking Episcopal Area Team (credits at the end):

Opening reflection: “[Saint] Francis, at the time … when he disappeared into the prison or the dark cavern, underwent a reversal of a certain psychological kind … The man who went into the cave was not the man who came out again … He looked at the world as differently from other men as if he had come out of that dark hole walking on his hands … If a man saw the world hanging upside down, with all the trees and towers hanging head downwards as in a pool, one effect would be to emphasise the idea of dependence … It would make vivid the Scriptural text which says that God has hanged the world upon nothing.”

May we come out of our cave walking on our hands and see the world hanging upside down. May we understand dependence when we know the maker's hand. Amen.

Prayer of penitence: Jesus, you startle us as paradox, irony and surprise permeate your teachings flipping our expectations upside down: the least are the greatest; adults become like children; the religious miss the heavenly banquet; the immoral receive forgiveness and blessing. Things aren’t like we think they should be. We’re baffled and perplexed; uncertain whether to laugh or cry. Again and again, turning our world upside down, your kingdom surprises us and so we pray now to see your world and our lives as you see them.

It's a funny thing about humility as soon as you know you're being humble, you're no longer humble. It's a funny thing about life you've got to give up your life to be alive, you've got to suffer to know compassion, you can't want nothing if you want satisfaction.

Lord, forgive our knowingness, our grasping, our comfort and our self-satisfaction.

It's a funny thing about love the harder you try to be loved, the less lovable you are. It's a funny thing about pride, when you're being proud you should be ashamed. You find only pain if you seek after pleasure, you work like a slave if you seek after leisure.

Lord, forgive our attempts to be loved, our pride, our pleasure-seeking and our leisure-seeking. As we turn to you, turn our lives upside down and bless us with poverty, with grief, with meekness, with hunger, with mercy, with purity, with peacemaking, with persecution and with your upside down kingdom. Amen.

Bible reading: Luke 7. 36-50

Reflection

Prayers of intercession: God of Israel, the God of the Exodus, you hear the cry of slaves and deliver true liberation. New regimes which leave the old order in place, the bullies in power, the greedy with their unjust gains, and which have nothing to say to the oppressed are not good and are not news. Having heard the subversive nature of your kingdom announcement, we pray for an upside-down kingdom that will deliver true liberation.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.

It is the humble poor who know their need of you and those who have nothing who know they need everything. So we pray for those moments when we and others become poor in spirit, bereaved, meek, hungry, thirsty, and turn faces to you looking for salvation. Open doors in us and others that gain and comfort have locked tight.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.

The Gospel announcement, your salvation, is truly comprehensive, is truly for all, because it is offered to losers, by circumstance or choice. The poor have no means of becoming rich but the rich have within themselves the possibility of becoming poor. There is nothing that we don’t have that will bar our entry to this upside-down kingdom and so we pray to be rid of what we do have that your kingdom may truly come to all.

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as in heaven.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever. Amen.

Closing prayer: Let it break out like blisters on the skin of this city.
Let it cut to the heart like cardiac surgery.
Let it create more column inches than Idols or Big Brother.
Let it turn more heads in public than Brooklyn Beckham’s mother.

Let it blow in like a hurricane, like a river, like a fire.
Let it spread like a virus, like a rumour, like a war.
Like the raising of a curtain, like the roll of a drum,
let it come to us: let your kingdom come.

Let it hit the road more readily than Eddie Stobart’s trucks.
Let it show up in more suburbs than Blockbusters and Starbucks.
Let it overturn more social norms than Marge and Homer’s Bart.
Let it be driven to more victories than Tiger Woods’ golf cart.

Let it blow in like a hurricane, like a river, like a fire.
Let it spread like a virus, like a rumour, like a war.
Like the raising of a curtain, like the roll of a drum,
let it come to us: let your kingdom come. Amen.


Opening reflection – extract from G.K. Chesterton, St. Francis of Assisi & adaptation of ‘The Cave’ by Mumford & Sons. Prayer of penitence – extracts from Donald Kraybill, The Upside Down Kingdom, ‘Trap Door’ by T. Bone Burnett & Matthew 5. 3-11. Prayers of intercession – adaptation of extract from Gerard Kelly, Humanifesto. Closing prayer - extracted from ‘Liturgy: Let your kingdom come’ by Gerard Kelly.

The reflection at the meeting came from Revd. Toni Smith and was the story of a child relating to a tramp in a restaurant where the acceptance of the child was profoundly moving for the tramp, in contrast to reaction of the adults in the restaurant towards him.

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Carolyn Arends - I Can Hear You.

Salt & sweetners

At the beginning of April a facebook campaign by Delirious? fans sent History Maker to the No. 4 slot in the singles chart. This campaign was based on the wish to have a contemporary Christian song at number one that reflected the positive values of the Christian message. Those involved are now trying to repeat the trick with BeBe Vox.

We have, of course, been here before with Heartbeat's Tears from Heaven in 1987 which, despite an appearance on Top Of The Pops, peaked at 32 and failed to become the substantial hit hoped for. A gushing exhortation in the Heartbeat newsletter to buy the record led both to accusations of hype from some and to prayer and fasting for the success of the single from others.

These campaigns seem to be based on the rather naive idea that an explicitly Christian song by an explicitly Christian band appearing in the charts will have a dramatic effect despite the fact that the song in question really only has the support and interest of the Christian community. Such campaigns also minimise the significance of mainstream bands which tackle spiritual issues in the music or which include Christians among the band members, as they imply that the only valid Christian music and witness is that which comes from direct from the Christian sub-culture.

By contrast, I'm constantly surprised at the extent to which bands with an interest in spirituality emerge with the support of mainstream labels. Paramore, for example, were voted Best International Band at the annual NME Awards earlier this year beating off competition from Green Day, Kings Of Leon, Vampire Weekend and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Working to the template perfected by Evanescence on Fallen of calling for spiritual rebirth in gothic imagery, Paramore cry out for wholeness in 'We Are Broken' from Riot:

"Cause we are broken
what must we do to restore
our innocence and all the promise we adored?
give us life again
we just wanna be whole."

Similarly Mumford & Sons debut album Sign No More is shot through with spiritual questing set to Fleet Foxes style folk without the Beach Boy harmonies. For the opening words of your debut album to be, "Serve God, love me and mend," is a stunningly brave beginning both from the perspective of quoting Shakespeare and in terms of the spiritual statement being made.

Bands like these are like salt flavouring mainstream music, as opposed to the artificial sweetner that is CCM added to the singles chart.

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Mumford & Sons - Sigh No More.