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Therefore, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

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I am in the lucky class of humans that have the liberty to listen to music with a bit more attention. That is because my work as a painter allows me to employ visual and auditory senses (and sense-making) at the same time. Not all artists are the same, but in my case the quality of my auditory input is more or less equivalent to the rate of my productivity and enjoyment at the easel.

Having no streaming capability, i.e. internet and signal, where I paint is a wonderful thing, as it forces me to intentionally download what I want to listen to beforehand. Currently, I download one or two albums to my phone (some suggested by Otto, thanks Otto) which I listen to ‘in one sitting’ as I paint. After the last song on an album, as when a good book ends, a sadness lingers. The unexpected melancholy I felt at the end of Chrysaline by Josh Garrels made me reflect on the ontology of “albums” and on some of the formational influences it might have on us as listeners.

A lot has changed since the plastic encased compact disk with paper-stapled booklet inside that is so characteristic of the “album”. I am a nineties baby and saw in my short lifetime the advent and/or extinction (and partial comeback) of LP Vinyls, compact cassettes and CD’s, Walkmans, radios and Ipods. Like most music lovers I know these days, I now use a subscription based music platform hosted on the internet and played via smartphone.

The advent of online streaming has created new opportunities for musicians to release music to the world. Yet the old distinctions between Albums, EP,s and singles remain. In the UK, today, the criteria for a recording to count as an “album” is that it should have more than 4 tracks or last longer than 25 minutes. There is little formal enforcement of this rule, but in the fluidity of the music industry today, pigeonholes and ‘markers’ like these create continuity and structure.

Classical compositions, of course, weren’t written to fit onto albums. Instead, they were composed for the occasion of their performance. Music was composed to accompany a mass or to be played at court or at a coronation. An opera can last anything from 1.5 to 5 hours or longer, and an average sonata span anything from 10 to 50 minutes (when I googled this I found: the sonata can last for 200 000 miles before giving engine problems, thanks Hyundai).

My praise for albums consists in two commonplace, but noteworthy things. Firstly, I have found that the traditional album format offers me a healthy, alternative to infinite scrolling that marks our media-saturated culture*. When painting, the melancholy but inevitable last song on the album signals the time when I need to take a break. In fact, most albums last exactly the amount of time that I can be creatively, intensively busy at the easel. Then I take off my headphones, put down my brushes and either go for a short walk in the garden or make a cup of tea.

Having few such-like endings in our lives and few rites of passage in general, I think the end of an album signifies something season-like, exactly what infinite scrolling does not. It reminds us that endings are normal, that cycles of productivity are followed by cycles of rest.

Another reason for my appreciation of albums is that singles, like single paintings, are rarely capable of sounding the depths of whole albums. On an album the creative person gets to approach a theme or subject from multiple angles, wrestling with it over a longer period of time. The same applies to the visual arts. Working towards a solo exhibition, as I’m attempting to do at the moment, invites the artist to chew on their theme for months whereas a single work might take only a few weeks to create. It forces the artist to push through and wait out the frustration of complexity. The blessing of it lies in the fact that the weaker songs on the album (or paintings in the exhibition) become absorbed and redeemed in the layered story of the whole.

In Praise of Albums

It is not surprising to find oneself drawn to “the Revelation from Jesus Christ … to his servant John” (Rev 1:1) at a time such as this. To be sure, the Revelation is a strange book with bizarre creatures and indecipherable episodes re-imagined and re-purposed from an ancient vault of Biblical apocalyptic imagery. And, as GK Chesterton so aptly put it; “Though St. John the Evangelist saw many strange monsters in his vision, he saw no creatures so wild as one of his own commentators.” Yet instinctively we sense, if the reader would “heed” (1:3) the words in this book, navigational directives will emerge by which to surmount tumultuous times. Herein lies the allure of the apocalyptic.

Consider the following excerpts in sequence.

After these things I looked, and behold, a door opened in heaven, and the first voice that I heard, a voice as of a trumpet speaking with me, one saying; “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.” Straightaway, I was in the Spirit: and behold, there was a throne set in heaven, and One sitting upon the throne … (Revelation 4:1-2)

This enticing scene presents itself immediately following the letters to the churches in Asia Minor. Clearly what is in view is a heavenly scene referencing the court-room of Daniel 7, a setting in which all truth is unveiled concerning kingdoms, and in particular, the enigmatic ascendency of that character of all characters, the Son of Man. As the reader continues, curious details emerge within the throne room itself including the reappearance of a peculiar scroll, left sealed and unopened for an appointed time ever since it conspicuously presented itself in the visions of Ezekiel, Isaiah and Daniel …

And I saw in the right hand of the One on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed up with seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a great voice, “Who is worthy to open the scroll, and to break its seals?” And no one in heaven, or on the earth, or under the earth, was able to open the scroll, or to look into it. And I began to weep greatly, because no one was found worthy to open the scroll, or to look into it: and one of the elders said to me, “Stop weeping; behold, the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah [cf. Gen 49], the Root of David [cf. Isa 11], has overcome so as to open the scroll and its seven seals.” And I saw in the midst of the throne (and of the four living creatures), and the elders, a Lamb standing, as slain, having seven horns, and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God, sent out into all the earth. And He came, and He took it out of the right hand of Him who sat on the throne. And when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the and twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying, ‘Worthy are You to take the scroll, and to open its seals: for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men and women from every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and You made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.” (Revelation 5:1-10; cf. vv.11-14—what must be the pinnacle of Christology in the New Testament.)

Taking leave of this breath-taking cacophony of praise, the Revelation swiftly moves to introduce the reader to the infamous four horsemen of the apocalypse in chapter 6 with devastation in their wake, until at the breaking of the fifth seal, John records:

Thanks [Otto](/team/otto_bam). Here is a hug.

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In Praise of Albums

Live not by Lies (Nor by Fear)