rfg #44 - "Advent ages"

Going into this week's show, I thought the entire proceedings would have gone overly whimsical. (Starting with Tiny Tim can do that.) The first half hour had a serious eighties college radio vibe, despite the fact that most of the recordings came from the past few years. The station had a single by These Electric Lives that I hadn't heard before, so coming up with Soda Water as a replacement was a fantastic upgrade. The Oxford Collapse song had been burrowing in my mind for a while, which is odd since most of their stuff straddles the nostalgia line too closely for me to truly appreciate.

CITR's archives had plenty of options for most of the artists I had lined up, though sometimes what I brought with me worked better. It's unfortunate that Bat for Lashes isn't in the library, since their debut stands as one of the strongest in recent memory. As the college sound floated up into the darkened clouds, I had to locate a few Canadian acts to both fit in and then lead us elsewhere. The recent fund drive delayed new playlist adds for a few weeks, so a great backlog is finally clearing, allowing me to tear into the new work from Sebastian Grainger (formerly of Death from Above 1979) and The Buttless Chaps, allowing me to land back in the salt of the earth.

...and dive into the Sacred Harp choral style, as featured in the recent documentary Awake, My Soul. CITR's music co-ordinator Mr. Meat had told me that he added the soundtrack specifically for me, which was gracious. Upon first listen though, I snapped to attention as the a capella choirs half-chanted, half-sang their notes. Taking a good chunk of hymns I knew — for those who may have known, one fact I don't advertise all the time is I used to be a church organist, though in the Lutheran tradition — the melodies and arrangements became almost Gregorian though brilliantly imprecise. I love the fact that the recording sessions were treated as field recordings, whereby the song leader (who changes each song) calls out the song or page number and everyone goes through the first verse in solfege then barge into the actual words on the second verse. Add to the fact that the songs are known by their melody instead of the song title, which better reflects the flexibility that hymns have as songs can take lyrics from other hymns, and standards such as Amazing Grace are known by locations (in this case, New Britain), the Sacred Harp tradition seemingly remixes the entire canon I'm familiar with.

The new-folk versions that followed weren't as immediate but it's great to see how the old gospel influence develops over different genres. And in many cases, certain artists gained their first exposure to this style as part of this project and discovered a way with music they hadn't necessarily been exposed to before. I can imagine some of you may be daunted with the idea of hearing religious themes; in that case, you can always unlisten to the words and pick out the character and unspoken message or history of what's being sung. If I had time, I'd like to sketch out a series of shows that explore the various parts of music and this soundtrack stands as a great way to highlight the human voice.

And with that, the playlist.