Books Read
Faith, Hope, and Carnage, Nick Cave and Seán O’Hagan
What Art Does, Brian Eno and Bette A.
The Soul of the World, Roger Scruton

Music Finished

For the (now finished) Dante 1981 Inferno Album:
Stone Giants of Jotunheimr
Behringer
Motherland

For the Simple Brass Hymns brass quartet album:
Be Thou My Vision
All Creatures of Our God and King
Before the Throne of God Above
Holy, Holy, Holy
For the Beauty of the Earth
Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing
Just as I Am
Praise to the Lord, The Almighty
Take My Life and Let It Be
In Christ Alone
It is Well With My Soul
O For a Thousand Tongues
Holy God We Praise Thy Name
Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
My Song is Love Unknown
All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name
Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy
Crown Him with Many Crowns

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There is a widespread habit of declaring emergent realities to be “nothing but” the things in which we perceive them. The human person is “nothing but” the human animal; law is “nothing but” relations of social power; sexual love is “nothing but” the urge to procreation; altruism is “nothing but” the dominant genetic strategy..; the Mona Lisa is “nothing but” a spread of pigments on a canvas, the Ninth Symphony is “nothing but” a sequence of pitches sounds of varying timbre. And so on. Getting rid of this habit is, to my mind, the true goal of philosophy. And if we get rid of it when dealing with the small things – symphonies, pictures, people – we might get rid of it when dealing with the large things too: notably, when dealing with the world as a whole. And then we might conclude that it is just as absurd to say that the world is nothing but the order of nature, as physics describes it, as to say that the Mona Lisa is nothing but a smear of pigments. Drawing that conclusion is the first step in the search for God.

-Roger Scruton, The Soul of the World, p. 39

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Books Read

A Covenant of Water, Abraham Verghese
Keep Going, Austin Kleon (fifth time)
Inferno (Sayer’s translation), Dante (third time)
Steal Like an Artist, Austin Kleon (second time)
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan
Going to Church in Medieval England, Nicholas Orme

Music Finished

The major milestone was finishing the acoustic Celtic album, the self-titled Kindlewick Island. I had to push myself to get this one finished: learning to play some tricky guitar parts, arranging some tunes that were outside of my comfort zone, rerecording a few sections from earlier that didn’t turn out as intended, and testing the mix out on a lot of different speakers in many settings. I think it ultimately turned out pretty well and is as proper a homage as I can muster!

I also got a big chunk of Inferno finished. With any luck it will be finished early spring 2025. You can find the backstory for it here.

For the Kindlewick Island Celtic album:
The Wild Geese
Geordie’s Byre / Galway Piper
Glenlogie
Be Thou My Vision
Sheebeg an Sheemor
The Return from Fingal
The Pure Drop
Matrix (Celtic Acoustic Mix)

For the forthcoming Dante 1981 Inferno album:
Elysian Fields Forever
Sexy Saxophone Doom Loop
Too Many Mushrooms (One)
Dis Track
The Burning Sand
Gloomy Sunday
Studies in Thievery

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I’m not a dog lover. My wife and both daughters and youngest son are, but I’m not. I’m a dog tolerator for their sakes. But circumstances a little under two years ago led me to a newfound appreciation of them. Our quiet little town, which typically goes for years at a time without a single homicide, was suddenly struck by a freak quadruple murder. Four college students were stabbed to death in their sleep. Everyone had questions. The university allowed students to leave to travel back home if they were scared. More than a few really were as several of the victims had large circles of friends and the apartment they were murdered in sat in the middle of a neighborhood densely populated by other students. I did not personally know anyone involved, but the police did come by my office the next day scouring the town for security footage that might offer any clues about the killer.

A few weeks before this I began having seemingly inexplicable panic attacks in my sleep. I had never dealt with this before and they were truly terrifying and debilitating – far worse than any sickness or stress I had experienced before. I barely slept for several days. After some phone calls to back home I discovered that, though it was rarely discussed, the condition runs in my family. My father started to have very similar panic attacks in his mid forties. His father, (my grandfather), also had them in middle age. It may have gone back further than that. Now it was my turn. As intellectually comforting as this was, the fear of panic setting in when I tried to lay down was still a constant thorn in my side every night.

Right in the middle of that season, on top of the invisible personal struggle, was piled the possibility of a slasher psychopath lurking just down the street. Or at the very least, he really WAS lurking just down the street a few days prior. I don’t think that would have kept me up at night during normal circumstances, but in the depths of my shell-shocked psyche, it was not helping one bit. But then, to my surprise, something assuaged my fear: our two woofers.

The first was a huge walking carpet Great Pyranese named Fezzik after the giant from The Princess Bride. He was not a brave dog and had never hurt a fly, but he was big, well over a hundred pounds, and he had a deep bark that was genuinely adrenaline-inducing if you weren’t expecting it. The second was a German Shepherd named Coco. Even though he was the runt of the litter, he had the mind of a guard dog and keen ears, and he looked like a proper police dog. Without fail he would assert himself to all at the door, be it the mail woman, UPS man, or the piano teacher.

With these two sleeping by the door every night, it became clear that if the killer came anywhere near our house and encountered these two beasts, he’d promptly crap his pants and flee!

I speak about the two dogs in the past tense because they are both gone now. The big one had bad hips and had to be put down a few months ago. The German Shepherd had a stroke or some kind of spinal injury and had to be put down this morning. I’ve been around a lot of dying animals throughout the years, growing up in a family of farmers, veterinarians, and trappers, but it’s never gotten easy. I’m angry at the two dogs for dying since my family is so sad, especially my youngest daughter. I guess pets are good practice for losing a living human that is much more consequential in the future.

A few weeks after the incident, in the midst of a fury of internet speculation, the police announced they had caught the alleged killer. They promptly flew him back across the country and locked him up in the jail three blocks from my house (oh goody) where (I am told) he proceeded to complain about the lack of vegan food and do whatever he could to cause the wheels of justice to move as slowly as possible. His trial is finally scheduled to start late next year, almost three years after the crime. A few weeks ago they moved him to a jail in the largest city in our state. I guess now that he’s gone, I don’t need the scary guard dogs anymore. I’m sure the Fedex guy’s blood pressure is doing a little better lately. I wish they would have stuck around a little longer though.

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I spent the past year working on this album of acoustic covers of Irish tunes and Scottish ballads. Some of the tunes follow existing arrangements pretty closely, while others I wrote and recorded new string, horn, and guitar parts and tried to give the songs a new twist. I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out.

Liner Notes

I fell in love with Celtic music upon first hearing Enya’s “The Celts” at the age of fourteen. This album is my attempt to cover many of the favorites I’ve discovered over the years, using my own voice and fresh arrangements. My wife and children graciously contributed their own musicianship and encouragement along the way. This work is largely an homage to Jim Malcolm, John Doyle, Pierre Bensusan, and others. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Matt Jepsen: Guitar, vocals, harmonica, dulcimer
Erin Jepsen: Flute, whistle
Natalie Jepsen: Violin, vocals
Seth Jepsen: Horn, string bass

Track List

1. The Pure Drop
2. The Apprentice Boy
3. Be Thou My Vision
4. Matrix (Celtic Acoustic Mix)
5. The Return from Fingal
6. My Parents Reared Me Tenderly
7. Geordie’s Byre / Galway Piper
8. The Battle of Waterloo
9. Sheebeg an Sheemor
10. Pretty Saro
11. Glenlogie
12. How Can I Keep From Singing?
13. The Wild Geese
14. Sweet Afton

Availability

In addition to the full album as a single YouTube video here, you can find an individual playlist version. You can also find it on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and all the other usual suspects if you happen to subscribe to one of those. For a free/name-your-price download of the high-quality audio, head on over to Bandcamp. I also have a small handful of nice hand-made physical CDs for sale there.

The post Kindlewick Island, New Celtic Acoustic Cover Album first appeared on Carpe Cakem!.

Books Read

Keep Going, Austin Kleon (fourth time)
A Woman of No Importance, Sonia Purnell
Creed or Chaos?, Dorthy Sayers (partial)
Sourdough, Robin Sloan
Messenger, Lois Lowry

Music Finished

Finished mixing the Dante 1981 Paradiso album and released it. All of it was written and recorded in 2022, but I hadn’t finished editing it all and done the final listening and mixing passes until this February.

For the forthcoming Dante 1981 Inferno album:
Lost in the Dark Woods

For the forthcoming Kindlewick Island (Celtic/folk) album:
How Can I Keep from Singing?
The Apprentice Boy
The Battle of Waterloo
My Parent’s Reared Me Tenderly
Pretty Saro
Sweet Afton

For the forthcoming Kindlewick Island Christmas album:
Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming

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One of the online music magazines I enjoy reading pretty regularly is Attack. A recent article from them titled “Manufactured Moments” laments the loss of the true sublime dance club experience and how festivals and promoters armed with elaborate laser shows, glitter cannons, and pyrotechnics try to artificially recreate or induce that elusive feeling. At the center of the discussion is a grainy 40-second video from a club in the UK from 1990 that surfaced recently showing a throng of ravers going absolutely bonkers when the beat drops.

What’s of interest to me is that I’ve read nearly this exact same article many times before… about church! This sort of thing is so common in Christian circles that it could almost be its own genre. One of the most memorable examples was a long thread (sorry, I don’t have the link) where the author pines for their early days in the Anaheim Vineyard Christian Fellowship. At the center of the discussion is a fuzzy hour-long tape recording from a worship service from about 1983 where a large crowd enthusiastically sings praise choruses. The comment section is filled with people who were there or had a similar experience, lamenting how the current songs and lighting and routines from tightly-produced groups like Hillsong and Elevation are nice in some ways, but just don’t capture that original energy. Not even close. They are trying to manufacture a moment and it’s just not nearly the same. The Holy Spirit seems gone.

Lest you be tempted to think this is just something charismatics think about, I’ve seen more than a few high-church liturgical types write their own versions of this story. It usually boils down to something like “things were really magical back when we (fill in the blank: chanted the psalms, burned more incense, knelt during the eucharist, listen to brilliant teaching from father so-and-so, sang the long version of the Sanctus, etc.), but now the worship service has gone to pot with all this modernization and I’m just not feelin’ it anymore”. The Holy Spirit seems gone.

I think we can learn something from both people telling this similar story. Quite simply, many of the most important things that happen in a person’s life… you just had to be there to get it. It really can’t be replicated, and it’s disingenuous to even try. The miracle of your conversion, or the way God met you in a certain place and time or surrounded by a particular community, is not replicable, nor should it be. Everyone else is going to have to live their own story… including the older version of you!

At the same time, the good liturgist or worship leader knows that the church service IS fundamentally something we manufacture. And that’s OK. It’s good to reinforce our faith with traditions, especially the proclaiming of the word and the administering of the sacraments. And we should do that as well and as thoughtfully as possible. This is how we, as humans, in time, in the rhythm of the week, and the seasons, can remember what God has done for us and can worship him, which is good and right.

So I don’t fault Hillsong for trying to produce really polished worship music with highly trained and skilled performers and technicians. But I do fault anyone who goes along with the marketing that this can make the magic happen. It could be a good thing but it’s been ridiculously oversold and overrated.

At the same time, I don’t fault the liturgists for wanting to reform the traditional worship service, or even to spend a lot of money on some new stained-glass windows. But I don’t think they should oversell or overrate these good things either. God meets us in and around these things, and often in the hours when we are away from the church service altogether. Let us ask him to increase our faith that we might be steadfast whatever situation we find ourselves in.

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