Hydra Dead

I heard some sad news that one of my favourite metal labels Hydra Head are going to be no more. See the news here ->

I don't know what your opinion or first impression of metal would be, but the kind of music that this label brought out would not be it. The owner of the label is the frontman of a band called band Isis, and they were the first band that really got me into metal, and it would be surprising to think what kind of music I'd have missed out on if they weren't around at the time. So many cool bands came from there - Cave In, Jesu, Old Man Gloom, Knut, Torche, Zozobra and of course Isis. I think it's safe to say that without this labels influence on my music preferences, I wouldn't have met all the cool metal rabble I became friends with at university, or had the privilege of being a drummer in a metal band.

I hope all the bands involved still get paid for the most recent things they put out for this label and get a chance to play some out there music in the future.

Here's some videos of some stuff by the label that I've enjoyed;



With a killer between-the-verse part - that bassist has a set of lungs.



They also did some stuff without screams, or even riffs...



Experiments with time signatures were often a success.



Doesn't sound much like metal does it?

Christmas limericks

There once was a moment called Christmas
When a baby born was restless;
Born in order
to end our disorder
and my list to be thankful runs endless


There once was a wise man with Myrrh
Who caused quite a bit of a stirr
Bringing embalming oil
On Bethlehem's soil
That death may not have the last word


A donkey one, not relating to Christmas per se, but donkeys do appear in the Christmas story.

There once was a man called Balaam
Whose donkey brought him alarm
Where upon the wrong road
He cried out "Don't go!
The Lord gave me speech for no charm"

Hysteria 8-bit cover

I recently finished a cover I've been working on for a bit - I hope you enjoy it!

Feistodon: indie artist Feist and metalheads Mastodon collaborate!

My wife Rachel doesn't like metal all that much, but she does like Feist. I think she's pretty cool too, having appeared quite a bit in one of my favourite bands Broken Social Scene. However, now she's joined the ranks of supercool, having joined forces with one of my metal loves Mastodon! Feist has covered a Mastodon song in her indie pop style, while Mastodon have covered a Feist song in their traditional bombastic heaviness.

And here's the results!





It's funny, the one that Feist performs ends up sounding pretty sinister, and the Mastodon performance is the nearest they've ever got to "happy metal"! I love it when very different styles come together and make something a little bit different in end product. Even Rach likes it :)

Quote Cuisine

Whenever I chance to visit the micro-blogging site twitter, I find that a lot of people follow people, dead or alive, so long as they have something meaningful to say in a punchy, one-sentence form. I'm not convinced yet and my blog is sure to carry on for a good old bit. I can understand the success of Twitter with the emergence of smartphones and the need for media to be smaller and more to the point as a result. It's far easier to check up on the world if we don't have to read a sprawling scrolling article on a mobile phone, if instead we can get a headline of the situations around us. I think that's it - what we get now is the headlines, of people and other subjects. Some things are explainable in this format. In Christianity key truths can be demonstrated in this way. Often my friends' tweets are quotes from well known Christians old and new, who are able to capture the truth of Jesus in such a format. There are of course, other subjects that, if we were to assess it through just one sentence, we would miss out understanding entirely. People can also use this to their advantage on twitter. If we misunderstand a person to the point that it makes someone sound funny, clever or popular, then for them it comes as a great benefit.

My failing is that I quickly dismiss quotes where they genuinely are helpful pieces of advice. Of course, I have to be discerning when seeing what people out there have written. One of the biggest ones is wisdom - I find myself disassociating myself with quotes because they are so disposable, even if they contain great wisdom. I miss out on nuggets for a few reasons and these are things I know in my heart I need to address;

1. Sometimes it's a bit of a minefield with Christians and posts, because so much of what is said, I try to find if there's anything in it that reminds me of what the Bible says. If I find nothing that relates it to what the Bible says, I'm quick to dismiss it - and I have a feeling that may not be the best approach. Though it's a great safeguard against trash and legalism, it does over-limit the influence godly people (and other people) can have in my life. After all, the sayings of Proverbs are as likely to be in someone's heart regardless of whether they know and trust God or not. Secular advice can at times be just as valuable as biblical truth, under the common grace of God.

E.g.

"Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for." - Socrates

When I see this, it reminds me of what it must have been like for the early church pre- Paul's letters. What those churches strived to gain (and making mistakes in the process) is something that can come us to us as hindsight's instruction through Paul to us today, so that we may not have to go through what they did.

2. Reading vs action. The idea of condemnation via just reading something and not acting upon it. A lot of the advice out there on twitter carries instructional emphasis, so to do not Do or to not Be what it prescribes straight away can hit like a wave of futility when reading more. Condemnation doesn't especially care that becoming like Jesus is a gradual process, and if the results aren't eminent then the enemy can use that to try and stop us edifying ourselves with more wisdom (and also scripture). I know he uses that on me. Ever heard the phrase "you are what you eat"? I think I've touched on it before with other blog entries, but even if the results from taking in scripture and wisdom aren't there immediately, the solution isn't then to stop feeding ourselves entirely, but that isn't always my response. The reality is we carry on to keep living.

Introspection

Post 101

So, my last post was #100, but I forgot to mark it with anything! Oh well. Old friends will know there's been many iterations of my blog, so it's not exactly an accurate milestone. I bet the real blog count is more like #400 by now.

Anyway, here's some music.

The coolest verbs of this week

• Finding a flat for Rach and I to live in when we are married. I find myself getting excited about the small details of it, like airing cupboards and dishwashers. It'll be really nice to be able to invite people round!
• Finalising catering and church arrangements for the wedding, and getting sound wisdom from a great couple in the church at marriage preparation. Its all coming together nicely.
• Hanging out with the McBurnie family. They are such a cool, generous, fun bunch. Did I say cool?
  
• Listening to some live bands in Exmouth. One band also had an inflatable parrot - what's not to like?
• Walking by the beach, getting my overdue seaside fix - and just so happened to catch the red arrows at the same time, doing their ducking, diving, streaming aquafresh colours thing.
• Visiting Bath and seeing some incredible busking - I guess someone briefed them about the strict 'no Wonderwall' policy. But Stairway wasn't denied!
• Cruising the Swindon ice rink. There were, of course, lots of small kids way faster than me. They have these cool small penguins that you can hold on to as stabilisers but there aren't any grown-up versions!
• Lastly, it can't be considered a cool week without the addition of eating a criminal amount of cake..

minecraft in pictures

My first minecraft world that got a bugged save and died. The thing in the sky in the top centre left is a skyway.

Cows eyes can't hide their crazed wheat addiction.

First time I found an abandoned mine. I wonder what the cobwebs mean..

Oh, it means poisonous spiders! There were two of these spawners in a row. So many deaths.

My house. Well, cave house. In fact its just a cave.

My fire fences made my other fences a lot more redundant, and also a lot more in danger of being lit.

Outpost in an ocean biome. The lighthouse has a weak revolving light system.

I found a floating island the other day near one of my outposts. Not so much laputa, more like the angry moon in Majora's Mask ready to collide..

And another one..

I actually quite like this one.

One thing I'm learning is that it is easy for me to obsess on the way the drums sound, just because it was the first instrument I learnt to play. It's takes a bigger force of will to put more time into melodies as it is the weaker, less practised side of my normal musical creativity (hence one melody that I only just realised is straight out of a rihanna song - doh!)

laboratory

Practice makes.. practice

'like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
so do our minutes hasten to their end'

Hidden knowledge, or, the proud man's gospel

  I finished reading the Lost Symbol, Dan Brown's most recent novel outing, and it got me started on some thoughts about what captivates people. Of course, one man's captivation is another man's snare! One thing that drew to mind especially is the idea of Gnosticism, or 'hidden knowledge'. Many of Dan Brown's novels (and lots of other literary and cinematic works) have gained popularity under the idea of some secret thing that contains considerable power that has the ability to change everything as we know it, so long as we are intelligent enough to get to the revelation of the secret. How it snares popularity is that it flatters people's sense of intellect in that there's something that cannot be easily understood, and appeals to humanity's sense of independent pride by hoodwinking us into thinking that we are the only one in on the secret. Holding a secret is a powerful thing in itself, despite whether the secret revealed is powerful or not, so the clamouring for power also adds as a hook to our attention. In essence, 'hidden knowledge' is unapologetic in its attempt to make us feel very important about ourselves, and it is very good at doing so.

  The Bible also gives no apologies either, but leaves us with a more level headed sense of who we are, and more usefully, who God is. The Bible gives revelation in this sense, it shows us I daresay a lot more than what we bargain for. I find the primary disappointment in my Bible reading is that I realise how base an understanding I really have of it - and even that, I believe, is an intentional purpose of God, to show me more the depths of what I do not know, so that I may more be in awe of the one who knows completely. Its also a spur in the leg to read on with scripture. "Dont' get it yet? Well, read on... how about now? Well, I guess it's more reading for you then.." In fact, lots of Jesus' parables conclude with Jesus' goading the people into understanding what they have heard. Goading! He means us to wrestle with it sometimes.

  The Gospel of Jesus is also accessible to all, and therein lies the frustration to those with intellect - if the truth is for everyone, then it has to be constructed in such a way that makes it painfully simple by nature, in its bare bones. Even using such backhand ploys as tugging emotional engagement! Hehe. Jesus simply is God Revealed, not clandestinely concealed. But the lovely thing about God's story in the bible is that for those who crave complexity and imagery and metaphor and multiple aspects, well, it's got it's fair share of that too. It's like God knew there would be minds that would be satisfied with truth as far as their level of understanding goes and within the bible there is something for every kind of mind. Not that the simplest Christian has any less joy for knowing the little they know. Any nugget however small to come from God can mature in our hearts to become gigantic riches. When I read how Daniel was deeply troubled by the visions that he had and found it difficult to recover from the things that God had shown him, I thank God for my having less understanding than Daniel! With wisdom, I suspect that coping with wisdom is one of the principal kinds of wisdom someone can have. Ever heard of the phrase "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all kinds of Wisdom"? I guess that's a good way of guiding us to fear God alone, that all else in life may become easier to digest. The mysteries of God that I cannot wrap my head around will probably remain mysteries for all my lifetime, but if they are my biggest problems within my lot in life, then physical turmoil will fade in comparison naturally.

  So overall I'm glad my God is not hidden. If it was based upon complex codes to break then heaven would be disproportionately awash with mathematicians and that's no good for his 'loving all kinds of people' message. What if I never got what he was trying to say? It'd be pretty hard luck if I was just a bit too thick to enter those pearly gates. After all I did only get a C in Maths A-level. Better that he set the standard low and universal, like admitting our nature has led us to sin in the past, and with the help of Jesus, facing up to that.

One tail at a time

So I finished my last blog with the idea that if I homed in on just one genre, it would give me focus to build a project on. In the end I decided to learn how to make music in the style of old video game music, or chiptune as it's sometimes known. I attempted this genre before but didn't get the hang of the programs used to make this style of music, but I found a new one called Famitracker that works quite well. I think I'll have a lot of fun with this program! So here's how things are sounding so far -

Pinning the tail on the music donkey

 
  A friend at church recently asked me, "So, what do you like listening to?" Ummmm...! I've found it increasingly difficult to answer this. Usually I change the question to "What are you listening to now" because that's a far easier question to answer, as it stands to reason that you like the music you're listening to at the moment sufficiently enough to talk about. So for instance, I recently discovered a whole load of bands that would probably fit in the ambient-postrock-metalgaze-drone scene (don't worry, you don't have to listen to carry on reading this blog, that just wouldn't be fair :p). I like categories so its annoying that when I try to think about what defines the music that I like, I can't put a finger on where it all fits.

  I have been trying to rack my brain over what I like in general about the music that I like rather than just genres, and I just can't pin it down. This becomes an issue when I think about creating music, which I don't really do anymore. I used to make music and just got on with it, but the more I question what kind of music I like, it puts a block on what I create. I find it a lot easier to be given a genre or a backdrop to make music to. Working with bands is helpful, because it gives a focus usually on one or two genres. Studying music at secondary school was helpful too, because all the compositions had a purpose or a setting in mind. When it is musical self-expression it is so much harder.

Where do you start?

  I understand now why there are artists in bands that feel the need to create something different than what they have done. They usually generate scorn because it wasn't what perhaps got them popular in the first place, and if you are popular in a music scene it is difficult to then steer any audience to start liking another kind of music that you want to create. But I understand the tension musicians have, of not wanting to just do the same music. Its not about recognition as such, more of a personal need to do it. I guess that's why some musicians can have such varied music careers.

  At the moment I've been thinking about composing some music again - but with a thought towards whether it is worth doing. One of the things that stops me is production - by this I mean, recording or noting down something, and it ending up sounding not as you wish not because of the proficiency with instruments but of editing and production effects (or lack of) etc. There are bands that I love that write simple music but have amazing ways of producing a sound. Then there are others that have incredible skill in their instruments and so the production doesn't have to be as good if the music is able to pull it through. Then there's other music I like because it sounds lo-fi, as in, almost devoid of good production. Its a real confusion. Every band I end up liking only adds to the confusion! Songwriting has different elements to it really, and even splitting it down to instruments and production is enough to be mystified about. Composition can give you pride in what you have created but also disappointment in the knowledge of what you can never create.

Software such as Guitar Pro doesn't lend itself to 'atmospherics' per se.

  Perhaps it would just be easier if I set a goal to try and make a song in a certain genre and stick with it for as long as I possibly can.

the gospel of jesus vs the gospel of my interests

Without realising, I've taken on board things I've heard from all over. Have you found your lifestyle affected by arbitrary outside forces? I'm pretty sure I've imbibed many a thing from the culture around me, good and terribly bogus, such as:-

- relationship advice from Scrubs..

from a guy that couldn't make any last, in a fictional show? Well played..

- how to be a good friend from Final Fantasy games! ahaha.. ahem.

and plugging that being silent and moody is "cool" at the same time.. doh!

- shown the benefit of sharing, through trading Pokemon.

All in the name of love, peace and my monster beating the poop out of yours.

- processing all manner of negative emotions through metal.

Rarrr, stomp, loud noises. If you're not floating in mid air, you're not doing it right.

- canonising dead rock stars' words -

*sniff* how tragic, he liked pizza! sob..


It's not that there's no room for culture, but I have to be prepared to protect myself against any rotting influence.

Just, what I can make from this, is that the world preaches to me and rest of us ever louder than the church. We don't realise, because we like the message, so we are not going to complain about being prescribed moral and lifestyle ideals that we already adhere to. The world speaks about our life as it is, in agreement for all that goes on. Where it differs, it differs comfortably enough to aspire to and adopt as our own. On the other hand, when Christ speaks into our lives, he gives no concessions to what is already there - if he is to be there in our life, then the rest of what makes up our life has to be prepared to ship out, and that's why it seems that those who speak of Jesus are more preachy than others - in reality, it just goes against the general way of human thinking. I admit, it grates on me as well, God's word, and its no surprise, as the bible says,

“my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.

He's bound to be different to me in boundless ways, for he is a boundless God, and I am clearly not. I am as sinful as God is Holy, as simple as God is wise, as proud as God is humble and as wayward as he is loyal. If I find anything lacking in him, then I prove my faultfinding faulty, just as Job did.

Christ and the Church, or, marriage

When Christians talk about marriage, they know that when people are joined together in marriage, it only weakly represents what is a more real truth, the relationship between Jesus Christ and the Church. Christ and the Church is the thing that marriage is supposed to point towards, that the union of marriage between people on earth is symbolic, a fallible (but tangible) representation of a great day to come, when the church (the bride) will come to meet with Jesus again (the bridegroom) in heaven, at which point there's lots of imagery in the bible to do with wedding feasts and joy and invitations to the banquet - what we have in metaphors can only show the smallest glimpse of heaven.

The BBC's article mentioning that "Church does not own marriage" really annoyed me, but the headline is absolutely correct. No one party in marriage can have ownership of marriage, so the Church, the bride in this case, cannot singly be the owner of marriage without the bridegroom, Jesus. Without Jesus, the heavenly marriage is impossible. After all, no single women can say all by themselves "I am married". So the same with Christ and the church - if that is the glorious truth behind marriage, and the physical union of two people the symbolism of that, then the Church by itself can never own marriage. And that is how the world would want it too - a church without Jesus Christ in it becomes one where you see supposed "christians" doing things that you were pretty sure they weren't supposed to be doing. A church without Christ is a divorced church and those on the outside looking in suffer disillusionment about God as a result.

I was fully prepared to let the BBC article be, and just let the people who like arguing about this kind of thing argue about this kind of thing without me - I see no need to rile non-christians on the subject of marriage. Few outside of Christianity desire marriage these days so I wouldn't want to discourage. As it is, there are few left who desire to spend their lifetime with someone else, less still who realise what that will mean for their life. I won't fully until I live it out.

It just seems the less important we make Godly values in marriages and relationships, the harder we find relating to each other. After all, without the notion of forgiveness, where can relationships go except down? And if we cannot reconcile ourselves to God, how difficult does that make reconciling ourselves with other people? And if husbands do not live a life of sacrifice for their wives, just as Jesus' bond to the church was through crucifixion, then how can we make good husbands?

The spirit is in us

I've always thought 'walking in the spirit' was a worse and clumsier term than 'walking with the spirit', but now I feel that the former statement holds more powerful imagery. With people, one person being 'in' someone else suggests an intimacy that comes with sexual union, whereas being 'with' someone suggests a space, however big or small, between the one person and the next. The spirit is with us, for sure, but saying the spirit is in us is a better demonstration of gods passion for us and his wanting to be as near to us as he possibly can. It also shows the degree of inseparability of God from the ones he loves. If it were just that God is with us, we could bite back and say 'yeah, from a distance', but the Holy Spirit being in us gives us no room for such doubts, for He is where we are.

Fussy eater

I think I can make up a pretty significant list of things I eat that I didn't eat when I was younger. I noticed something was different when I actually enjoyed a burger king for the first time today - every other time there's been something inside that didn't quite sit right (well..okay, I took out the tomato..that doesn't count...working on it :p). So, here's a list of things I hated first but like now;

pizza
kidney beans
mushrooms
broccoli
mayonnaise
spinach
marzipan
christmas pudding
tea
coffee
cauliflower
courgette
chutney

reminds me of this brilliant advert - I guess there's no revels that scare me anymore!


but there still are many things I don't like on their own;

egg
baked beans
tomatoes
sweetcorn
peas
vinegar

Who knows - maybe the list will change again this year? After all, the ones highlighted in bold I only started to like last year.

Blogs have been written

God has been faithful, food has been eaten, sherlock has been watched, the wheel of time has been read, a giant football team has been slaughtered, minecraft has been played and Rachel is rather fetching.

narrow minded

If you are a Christian, you would have heard it before. Maybe from your friends, from the people you work with, from well wishers, enemies, anyone - that to be a Christian is to be 'narrow minded' - that is, to be closed off from all the other possibilities that are out there, that our thoughts pass through a filter that stop us enjoying all that there is to enjoy from life, that we take a stance on reality that limits us somehow, and leads us to the wrong decisions. That it isn't a cerebral endeavour.

How far away from the truth could that statement be.

My only defence against this statement is... God. God is not something that can be easily comprehended, simplified, understood. In the hymn 'Crown him with many crowns', God is described as "ineffably sublime" (always the bit as a kid where I nudge a friend next to me and ask, 'What's ineffable mean??')
When I found out ineffable meant unknowable, I couldn't help but laugh, and agree. I can't just wrap my head around God and say of him 'I'm done. Next!'. The giving of our lives to God signifies the kind of timeframe that we need to just get a glimpse of what he's about. The eternal reward of Heaven gives us all time to find out.. so you could say that an infinite amount of time is sufficient for understanding God. A recurring theme within the New Testament talks about the boundless, imcomparable riches of Christ.

If I were on a quest to be narrow minded, I'd be much better off not thinking about God altogether, just to make my life simpler. Jesus says of himself that he is 'The Life', that he has come to 'bring life, and life in its fullness'. Far be it from him to narrow our gaze - he comes to broaden it to show us what real living can be like. Take any other lifestyle, take any other God but him, and we take second best for our minds. Living for God comes with it's own set of complexities - but all worthwhile for what it entails. One thing's for sure it that it never stops you thinking.