Humans all have a deeper longing to engage with music in a kind of dance where there is intention, anticipation and response, and a sort of push and pull motion. Recorded music can certainly help facilitate this, but unfortunately it can also dampen that longing. There is a certain language that we learn, whether subconsciously or through a more active process, that helps shape the … Continue reading Meet Me at Our Spot
“ Oh blessed rage for order…The maker’s rage to order words of the sea…” ~ Wallace Stevens One of Augustine of Hippo’s ways of understanding the human heart sounds paradoxical at first: a man can walk around the earth, but he cannot ever circumscribe his own heart. Rather than debate whether or not this is the case, I am going to take this as … Continue reading Gregory Alan Isakov and Rainer Maria Rilke on the Quiet Things of Life
Perhaps pagan, apparently agnostic, undeniably unchristian—whatever category you apply, Hozier’s music is fundamentally religious. Rather than divorcing faith from art, Andrew Hozier-Byrne, who performs under the stage name Hozier, brings religion to center stage. He wrestles with God in both of his albums, inviting his audience to actively contemplate the afterlife and critically analyze the nature of worship alongside him. His disdain for institutionalized Christianity, … Continue reading “Take Me to Church”: Hozier and Man’s Innate Religious Impulse
If you’ve had a conversation with me about music recently, it’s likely that Jacob Collier has come up. His most recent album, Djesse Vol. 3, has become somewhat of an obsession of mine—I haven’t been able to stop listening since its release this past August. The extent to which Jacob Collier has captured my imagination is rather odd, because his music is, well, rather odd. … Continue reading The Negative Space of Music: Jacob Collier’s Djesse Vol. 3
There’s this silly, sentimental country song by Tracy Lawrence with the famous chorus, You find out who your friends are somebody’s gonna drop everything, Run out and crank up their car, Hit the gas, get there fast, Never stop to think “what’s in it for me?” or “it’s way too far” They just show on up, with their big old heart, You find out who … Continue reading Measuring Time
In late September, Brittany Howard released her first solo album and embarked on a two-month international tour. The album, Jaime, takes its name from the older sister who taught Howard to play the piano and who died of cancer as a teenager. A short half-hour and eleven tracks long, Jaime artfully unfolds its maker’s history: her loves, perspective, anxieties and wounds. To work on this … Continue reading Music Review: Brittany Howard, Jaime
It is evening and supper is through. The shorter, noisier humans who live with me have evacuated the kitchen in order to pursue some brand of havoc outside. Their taller, wiser maternal figure is putting little ones to bed, and it is finally time. The dishes are scattered throughout the room and roped about with remainders of clingy pasta. Cutting boards with … Continue reading Cleaning with Funk
The West Bank boys bring funk to the pages of The Forum and discuss “No Church in the Wild”. Continue reading The hedonist king in the ethical wasteland
Hillsdale Forum 