Because Too Much Music has been In My Head

2008 was a music explosion for me.  Between discovering the Black Cab Sessions, la Blogotheque, Ruckus, and various vinyl purchases, I've heard and enjoyed and fallen in love with more music this year than ever before.  To make a list of everything I've discovered and loved would be a very difficult undertaking.  Instead, I will make a list of the most notable.  After all.  Tis the season for year end lists.

Bon Iver - "For Emma, Forever Ago"

this record has received more plays since I've received it than any other I have.  Every time I put it on, I can't believe how fantastic it is.  I know it's cliche to mention in an end of the year list, but I don't care.  It deserves it.

Radiohead - most notably, In Rainbows, Kid A, Amnesiac

My friend Kriss called In Rainbows a boring pop record.  I disagree.  I think it's one of the greatest pop records of all time...if your definition of pop is wide enough to include albums that feature an orchestra playing all twelve notes in the western music scale.  I got Kid A on vinyl and came to appreciate it so much more.  I found out Amnesiac existed in the summer and felt cheated.

Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends

The best material they've ever done and one of my favorite albums of all time.  Thank you, Brian Eno, for pushing Coldplay into dangerous waters.

Thrice - The Alchemy Index

Especially Vol III, Air, which I'd say is the strongest Thrice material ever released.  

The Album Leaf - Into the Blue Again

Tranquility in album form.

Fleet Foxes - s/t and Sun Giant EP

The most infectious melodies and harmonies you'll hear in a long time.  Take the Beach Boys, throw in an acoustic guitar, a mandolin, some xylophones, and Sub Pop's fantastic taste for talent, and bam.   A pair of records that you'll listen to over and over again.

Loney, Dear - Loney, Noir

Sweden just keeps putting out incredible musicians.  This guy is no exception.  It's almost like if Jonsi of Sigur Ros was the lead singer of a chamber pop orchestra.  Incredibly catchy and just genuinely excellent song writing.

Lykke Li - Youth Novels

Another Swedish gem.  Dance pop with Indie tendencies.  Fantastic record from a very young talent.  

Phosphorescent - Aw Come Aw Wry

A quirky, country tinged album.  It's so childish and fantastic.  You'll either love it or you'll hate it.  I love it.  

I haven't listened to the album Pride enough to make a decision, but that seems pretty fantastic as well.

Adam Arcuragi - Soldiers for Feet EP

A wonderful new song writer.  This is a collection of country songs sung by a non country singer.  Thick, rich harmonies and good, melancholy, nostalgic songs.   Check out "The Belgian"

There are many other notable additions, such as Noah and the Whale's "Peaceful, the World Lays me Down," the Great Lake Swimmers (whose material I wish was readily available on vinyl.  Darn little known bands on small budget record labels), and the Innocence Mission.  There are also many releases I wish I would have heard more of, like TV on the Radio's "Dear Science," Sigur Ros's new one, Man Man's "Rabbit Habits," and more.   

And of course, there's the growing love of Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, and more recently, Emmylou Harris that have been coming around, threatening to turn me into a country singer.

Music is so much more than the sum of its parts.  I don't understand it at all.

Christmas Day

I sometimes forget that the Jesus of Christmas is the same as the Jesus of Good Friday. The same Jesus that taught us to love and live by advocating the least and the lost and then dying for us all, regardless of class, race, gender, religion (YES, regardless of RELIGION). I forget that it's the same Jesus that healed lepers, defended the woman caught in adultery, revealed Himself as the Christ to a Samaritan woman given to promiscuity, and responded to a thief's plea of remembrance by assuring him that he would enter into Glory.
I forget it's the same Jesus that met me as a whirlwind, tearing apart everything in my life that wasn't attached to the earth of who I really am and replacing what was empty, superficial, and hollow with substance, depth, and goodness.
I forget that it's the same Jesus that I'm competing with to see how deep into selfishness I can go before He stops forgiving me, and to see how much He'll keep forgiving me until I see how much I'm worth.

God rest ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay
You know that Christ our Savior was born on Christmas Day
To save us all from Satan's power when we had gone astray

There is a Place

There's a place on the way to Glory
It's a place where all my burdens have been laid
It's the place where I keep stopping
To make sure that all of them are safe
There's a jar that keeps on cracking
The keeps of all my ugliness within
And it leaks out where it's broken
And drips onto my hair and off my chin

And I know a hard rain's gonna fall
And when it comes, there'll be nothing left of me at all

There's a light shines in my darkness
That make everything seen just as it is
And my eyes just keep on closing
Because that's only way to ignore it
There's a road that leads to Heaven
It's narrow and goes on without a curve
But my feet, they keep on walking
Beneath my knees and kick and twist and turn

And I know a hard rain's gonna fall
And when it comes, there'll be nothing left of me at all

There's a heart inside my ribcage
That breaks with every selfish word I hear
And the most selfish words that I've heard
These days have been coming from right here. (points to mouth)

And I know a hard rain's gonna fall
And when it comes, there'll be nothing left of me at all.

The Ice Storm

The semester is finished.  I'm 22 now.  I've realized how undisciplined I've become this semester and how much I've overlooked certain friends of mine that I have needed to not overlook.  22, 2009, and the spring semester are all good times to start over.

I found a place to stay in Chicago.  With two good friends.  Awesome.

God and I have been having this strange sort of contest.  I keep disobeying and He keeps forgiving me.  I said, "Jesus, how long are we going to go keep doing this?"  And He said, "Are you sure you really want to find out?  Let's go.  You'll keep on sinning, and I'll just keep extending grace to you, and I am so much more stubborn than you are."

GAH!

Bon Iver is playing in Chicago on my birthday in TWO DAYS.

WHO WANTS TO COME.

Finale

I have some things to finish up for Church History, a final for Intertestamental History on Tuesday, and a take home Hebrew final due on Thursday.

I had a sort of breakdown last night. I got incredibly confused about "certain things." I'm clearer now, though. It was a sort of release of thoughts I'd held in for too long.

I don't know why I have such a hard time confessing publicly that I struggle with sexual temptation. I expressed that struggle to some brothers, who all said the same thing. We're all angry at the hold that fight has in our lives and the lives of other men around us. And yet, there's such a reluctance to say clearly in the light of everyone's watching, "I am frail, I am weak, I am struggling, and this is how." And by 'everyone,' I explicitly mean a crowd that includes females. Because guys already know.

I'm coming to appreciate the Beatles' Abbey Road as one of the greatest albums ever recorded.

Obligatory Update

I don't feel like blogging right now, because I hate blogging when I don't feel like I have anything to say.
But I am.

The semester is coming to a close. I have one more class and a few more assignments and I'll be finished. Because I see how little I have to do, I just kind of feel like I'll continue to have time for it, so I push it back further. I'm so ambitionless this semester.

I feel like my time is too precious to give to anything (school, God, general adventures) and so I've just wasted so much of it. I don't know how it got this bad. That is definitely going to be something to change next semester. Even though I want to change it now.

Ho, hum.

I turn twenty-two in seven days. I'll be the oldest I've ever been.

A Series of Revelations made in the Past Week

along with a few other assorted thoughts.

I'm more of a sinner than I ever realized.
Jesus delights in forgiving our sins more than we could ever know.
We were not created to appease those around us.
We were created to love those around us.
I am incredibly blessed.
I don't know how to sleep without going to sleep defeated, and I've barely slept all week.
I don't feel comfortable praying out loud, because I don't use words. I pray in music.
I am more of a musician than I know.

"Jesus sought me when a stranger wandering from the fold of God/
He to rescue me from danger interposed His precious blood/
And how His Kindness yet pursues me, mortal tongue can never tell/
Here in flesh till death release me, I cannot proclaim it well."

"When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within/
Upward I look and see Him there Who made an end to all my sin/
Because the sinless Savior died my sinful soul is counted free
For God the Just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me."

Procrastination is a pain

But he's my good friend.