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Album Of The Day: You Are I Am by Darrell Evans
Darrell Evans is a Christian musician that became popular making long, sometimes spontaneous modern church music. His musical influences on his studio albums seem to be rockers like Bruce Springsteen and U2, but the lyrics are all about a personal relationship and praise to God. You Are I Am is his first studio album, which repeats some of the songs on his more acoustic live album from the previous year. I like these more rock-focused arrangements and how most of the songs are 5+ minutes long, musically expressing passion and thanks for God. Darrell Evans has continued to put out new music, but I still keep coming back to his 1997 and 1998 albums which are full of now-classic songs that inspired a whole generation of worship leaders in the years after, I imagine.
Release Year: 1998
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Album Of The Day: Multisensory Aesthetic Experience by Mae
Mae was a popular mid-2000s band, but after 2007's Singularity record was less successful than expected, the band went independent and released a series of EPs. They came back on my radar with this album, released on this day in 2018, which is a collection of rock songs pretty similar in style to their first album. The band likes to experience with sounds and multimedia experiences, it seems, though I've not really experienced their shows or much more than just listening to their music. It would be fun to get a more immersive experience of their music somehow, someday. The album ends with a beautiful, six-minute instrumental rock exploration featuring violinist Tim Fain. Mae is not a band I listen to really often, but some friends really like their work and I do find I like it when I do listen.
Release Year: 2018
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Album Of The Day: Strings & Sonnets by Phil Keaggy & Malcolm Guite
Although I got my copy of this record a few weeks ago, this album officially releases today. Malcolm Guite is an English poet and on this album he recites his poetry, ruminations on the scripture, the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and more. Underneath Mr. Guite's poetry is laid acoustic guitar and the occasional other instruments from Phil Keaggy and friends. What results is a great fusion of poetry and music from two masters of their respective arts. 16 poems are read with music to go with the reflective poetry. After the poetry (on side B of the record), 20+ minutes of the same instrumental music is presented without the sonnets. I'm not sure when it will be available on streaming, but you can buy it digitally or on vinyl or CD directly from the artist.
Release Year: 2024
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Album Of The Day: Kansas by Jennifer Knapp
In the mid-90s, Jennifer Knapp was a young singer who had just converted to Christianity. At the same time, the music industry was looking for new talent, and they quickly found Jennifer Knapp and signed her. Her first album, Kansas, was a simple rock album with mostly acoustic instruments. Jennifer's lyrics spoke very personally to her coming to believe in God and struggling with the concepts of faith and religion. The lyrics use lots of lines from the Bible and her folksy rock vibe was definitely something new to the Christian music industry. Jennifer Knapp made a few more albums for the Christian music industry and then left the music industry for a while, returning and speaking out against the music industry and doing more independent music.
Release Year: 1998
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Album Of The Day: Wake Low by Wake Low
Wake Low is three siblings: Aedan Peterson, Skye Peterson, and Asher Peterson. Their dad is Christian adult contemporary/folk artist, Andrew Peterson, and on this self-titled album, they make something that is not their dad's style, but is much their own. Electronic music, acoustic guitars, and other instrumental sounds fuse with their vocals to make an energetic sound speaking of life, God and the space in between. It's great to hear what these young persons are coming up with, not compartmentalizing their spiritual life from the rest of their life, and experimenting with sounds and musical forms. And it's fun to see the siblings take turns on vocals and other roles throughout the album. It's not a long album, but it's a good collection of fresh new songs from the Peterson family.
Release Year: 2020
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Album Of The Day: The Times They Are A-Changin' by Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan's third solo album starts off with the title track, "The Times They Are A-Changin'", still one of his most popular songs ever. The album definitely sounds like a traditional folk album, with mostly just vocals, acoustic guitar and the occasional harmonica. Bob Dylan writes all the songs, and keeps much of the lyrics timeless but also topical, with a few songs memorializing black persons killed and a few anti-war songs. Some of the songs like "North Country Blues" and "Boots Of Spanish Leather" seem to speak of the working man in America. It's 10 songs of Bob's classic songwriting, typical vocal wail, and beautiful instrumentation. In the next year or so, Bob Dylan started leaving traditional folk and incorporating more rock 'n' roll, so this album is a good snapshot of his early work.
Release Year: 1964
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Album Of The Day: The Eternal Son by Rivers & Robots
For the past few days, my album picks have been from the United Kingdom. So let's keep it going for a 4th day, I guess. Rivers & Robots is a British band that makes modern worship music, though not what you hear at most churches today exactly. Jonathan Ogden and band create beautiful and complex, sometimes jazzy and sometimes electronic pop/rock with lyrics praising God and/or talking to God directly. Many of the lyrics seem to be taken directly from Scripture, I think. It might not be exactly music to be sung in churches, at least in this form, but it's beautiful music that can draw us closer to God. I honestly only started listening to this band a few years ago and don't know if I can distinguish this album from their 4 other studio albums, but I've liked all of them and want to get into their music more.
Release Year: 2016
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Album Of The Day: Woven Cord by Iona with The All Souls Orchestra
Throughout the 1990s, Celtic progressive rock band Iona released 4 studio albums and 2 live albums. Woven Cord was their second live album recorded in May of 1999, which contained songs from their earlier albums and a few songs from their upcoming 5th studio album, Open Sky. Iona has a wide variety of sounds, from tender instrumentals to passionate vocals, from pipes to electric guitars, from atmospheric to dance. And the addition of The All Souls Orchestra on this live recording even brings an even bigger sound to their live sound, though their live sound is by no means small even without an orchestra. Iona has continued to make music in the 25 years since this album as well and are one of my favorite bands. Unfortunately, this is one of these albums that I enjoy that is not on streaming services for y'all to listen to, so you'll have to do some searching if you want to listen. You can listen to some of their other albums on streaming, though note that there's at least a few bands using the "Iona" name. Who knows, maybe you can find a used CD of this album somewhere.
Release Year: 1999
Album Of The Day: Everyday Life by Coldplay
Released on this day 5 years ago, this album is not one I listen to often, but I listen to it more than any other album Coldplay has released in the last 15 years. Coldplay released this by playing the songs live online from the country of Jordan during sunrise and sunset 5 years ago, which was a memorable way to debut the album. More than any other Coldplay album in the last 15 years, this album has a variety of sounds, not just the same energetic pop that they've been putting on their albums for the last 15 years before or since. There's a moment of Gospel music, some sounds of the Middle East, some beautiful instrumentals, and some lyrics talking about the world's issues today, not just feel-good pop anthems. It was refreshing to see the band coming back to making interesting music like they did on their earliest albums, and it's unfortunate their two albums since Everyday Life just seem they're going back to their formulaic stuff that does not connect with me as much. It's not that all their recent music is terrible, but this is their only recent album that I like listening through as an album.
Release Year: 2019
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Album Of The Day: Mezzamorphis by delirious?
I think this is my favorite album from delirious?. When this released in spring 1999, delirious? was pretty new to the USA and was known for their early days doing modern worship, a kind of updated version of church music, but their latest albums turned out to modern rock albums instead. Mezzamorphis found the band putting the music sung to God on hold though still talking about a relationship with God in their lyrics. The band experimented with their sound a lot and added more strings, guitar effects, theremin, and overall Brit-rock styling. At 50 minutes, it's actually their shortest album, which may be partly why it's their most focused album. I love this rock band and although the band did not last forever, I continue to enjoy their music and the memories of seeing them play live a few times over the years.
Release Year: 1999
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