Music Review: The Pursuit Continues by Giraffe Incognito.

Meet Boris.

There are many things that Boris would like to do in life – such as have a girlfriend, or walk down the street without being yelled at – but unfortunately, Boris is not cool.

Boris has tried numerous approaches to gaining coolness. He bought new jeans and ran over them with the lawnmower (you know, for that authentic ripped look). But that didn’t make Boris cool. He watched every film by Quentin Tarantino (even Jackie Brown!), but that just left him confused. Finally, he moved to Belgium and learnt Flemish so he could return with a cool accent. Alas, he just sounded pretentious!

You see, what Boris never found out is that being cool isn’t about what you look or sound like … it’s about what music you listen to.

What Boris needed was the smooth, 1920s-gangster tones of Giraffe Incognito. It’s obvious, really!

I was trying to think of a good way to frame this review. You know, some sexy way of saying “okay, so this CD is by my brother-in-law, but I promise I’m not reviewing it out of nepotism…”. Oh – I guess I just came right out and said it, didn’t I? Oh well, we’ll see how that goes.

Disclaimers notwithstanding, this album – The Pursuit Continues – is one of those CDs you wish you could find when rifling through a second-hand music shop; something no one else has heard of (yet); something that’s a little off-beat … and most importantly of all, something that sounds great! In that case, you’d go to great lengths to tell everyone you know about it, right? That makes this album eminently blogworthy!

—

Musically, this album reminds me of Gotye, maybe the Propellerheads, or even Bentley Rhythm Ace. Giraffe Incognito (aka. William Rainbird) gives us guitars, drums and violin with lashings of amusing samples from scratchy old vinyls that give the album a great cigar-smoke-in-a-1920s-gin-club feel. Most of all I’d say it’s a bass (as in bass guitar) driven album. That’s a good thing; we all know that bass is the second* coolest instrument out there.

Here are some things you might notice on listening to The Pursuit Continues:

Most of the tracks are instrumental. I like this because it reflects the laid-back nature of the album. There’s no rush to keep up with a long series of enigmatic lyrics (tell me: do songwriters aim for lyrics to be vague and obtuse?). It’s about the music – which tends to be playful and interesting.

Where there are lyrics, they’re kinda fun. With tracks like The Bank Robbery, Mr. Gangster Man and Villains, and a song about an escaped serial killer, we’re joining in on an adventure rather than exploring the depths of someone’s psyche.

There’s still a raw quality to the recording. I hesitate to say that, because it sounds like a euphemism for “not very well recorded” – which is thankfully not the case here. Instead, there’s a kind of unselfconscious air to the album, whereas an overpaid producer (in their wisdom) might have said “cut that track, shorten that track, make this track sound more like James Blunt” etc. Nope; not here. Instead of sounding like something else, The Pursuit Continues seems to have a character and personality of its own.

Start and finish. Since I happen to read Giraffe Incognito’s blog, I had a heads-up on this one, but back in August there was an interesting discussion on how important the final (and for that matter, opening) track of an album is. This album is book-ended by solid instrumentals. The opener (The Dutch Camp Lounge) brings things to a great start – it’s laid-back, and it’s got THAT synth note that brings in the drum to give it major cool-factor. The closing track (New Kids In Town – watch out for an upcoming novel of the same name!) does its job in textbook fashion. It’s short, snappy, and a perfect representation of the album.

Nice track names. Like Tortoise With a Turtleneck Sweater. That’s gold. Also Don’t Watch Television Tonight, which becomes more amusing once you hear the sample of Mr. Giraffe impersonating his Dad (with an American accent? – nice).

Other highlights. Villains is very catchy. Beware. Also, my pick for setting a great mood would be Tomorrow’s Past – with a menacing effect on the bass it has a great sense of tension to it. Oh, and the album art – which I’ve only been able to see in digital form since I’m here in BG – is nicely done and sets the tone for the album even before you press play. It’s a parody of Nighthawks by Edward Hopper with the ubiquitous giraffe in place of “that guy at the bar”. Very classy.

—

The album is 100% previewable if you go to this website – it’s free. You can even download the whole thing for a donation of your choice (ie. you can pay nothing, if you’re a nasty piece of work ).

Hi all – time for another random review.

The Shack has been a huge best-seller, promoted enthusiastically by church groups. The fictional book centres on a middle-aged guy called Mack who’s had some tough things go on in his life. In brief, the book describes a weekend that Mack spends at a remote shack with none other than God. The book uses the dialogue between Mack and God to address the question of why a loving God would allow awful things to happen to people.

I suppose like many others I was hesitant to read the book. “Best-seller” isn’t something I count as a glowing endorsement… but when I got over my pretentiousness and started reading The Shack I was immediately impressed with the quality of the writing. [I did the same with The Da Vinci Code but gave up after only 50 pages. Abysmal writing!] Young’s narrative in the first 80-odd pages features great characterisation, a delicate exposition of Mack’s emotional state, good use of “hooks” to keep the tension building, and a skilfully told action sequence.

Once we meet God, the writing deteriorates massively. I’m talking “Pulitzer” to “airport novel” in the space of 20 pages! Of course, the genre of the novel completely changes at this point too, so it’s somewhat forgivable but I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed. Some of the exchanges between Mack and God, where Young is trying to explain some very complex theology, read like an infomercial – you know the kind where the presenter (Mack) asks blatantly leading questions of the guest (God) in order to elicit the precise message they’ve been scripted to deliver… I’m sorry, but it’s that bad.

On the other hand, this doesn’t necessarily take away from the impact of the exchanges between Mack and God. As I said, the novel changes genre at that point. The first 80 pages are an engaging novel about a likeable but hurting man called Mack… the rest of the book is a novelised text-book featuring a crash course in the question of why God allows suffering. But, as Dave Rietveld’s review of the book suggests, this confusion over the genre is unhelpful because it forces you to change the way you interpret what you’re reading.

Specifically, there are two reasons why I struggle with the way the theology is presented in the second movement of The Shack. Firstly, the foreword and afterword set the book up as a true story (though it is declared as a novel – ie. a fictional work). This may improve the reader’s experience of inhabiting the book, but it’s confusing. Secondly, since the author speaks for God, in a manner of speaking, it becomes easy to imagine that you’re really reading the words of God, rather than an attempt by the author to answer some HUGE questions.

I felt like I had journeyed with God after reading the book – and I had! God (the real one!) has been and is using this book to challenge me in my own faith. But… The Shack is not The Bible part 2. My advice (to myself – and I recommend it to you!) is that a book like this needs to be considered in the same sense as any other book about God. It’s one man’s (inspired) account of how God relates to people. In reality, one of the book’s main messages is to engage with God; to deepen your relationship with him and follow his guiding. Clinging to The Shack as some sort of talisman would, as such, be a gross (and ironic) misinterpretation of that great advice.

The other problem I found with the book was that some of Young’s theology is just too cerebral! For me, the fact that so much of what God had to say to Mack came in the form of wordy, convoluted platitudes really took away from their potential impact. I don’t think the Bible has very much of that kind of writing (except maybe Romans ) so it seems disappointing that Young – clearly a very intellectually capable thinker – resorts to an attempt to explain too much of “how things work”.

I’ll admit that this criticism is based on my personality; Young is no doubt a very structured thinker, whereas I’m a rather phlegmatic (read: lazy) one. You might love having things spelled out a bit more (albeit in very intellectual terms) but I think I’m more comfortable with the vagaries.

—

By this point you’re probably quite confused about what I actually thought of the book. That’s appropriate because I was confused by it! I loved some of the writing, and cringed at other parts; I empathised with some of Mack’s experiences, but couldn’t understand some of his responses; I was moved by the way it showed God’s love for his people, but just plain confused by some of what Young tried to espouse.

I think my conclusion was that The Shack was an enjoyable and challenging novel. I suspect that many people might read the book and scoff at it for some of the same reasons I struggled with it – “bah, I can’t stand the way he portrays God…”; “pfft, it didn’t make a word of sense!”; or “meh, I couldn’t really get into it”. That’s understandable but also a pity. Personally, I found that by suspending my doubts about the writing and asking God (you know, the real one) to use the book to deepen my relationship with him, I got a lot out of the book.

G’day all, Stu here.

We’ve been enjoying lots of new music lately and I was thinking “wouldn’t it be nice to share with people how cool some of this music is?”. Also… I thought it might provide a respite from all our ramblings about culture shock and whatnot if I gave a music review or two.

—

Jars of Clay – The Long Fall Back to Earth (2009):

Jars have been one of my favourite bands since they were the coolest new band of 1996 (as voted by our youth group… no wait, that makes them sound way less cool…). At their best they create a quite unique folky alternative-rock. They’re a “Christian” band, but I really respect that they don’t feel compelled to stick to a certain expectation about what a Christian band should sing about.

It’s a long album (14 tracks) and doesn’t have the neat album-narrative of many of their albums (ie. the way that the songs usually follow each other to form a progression of highs and lows – as in a typical story). I’m not sure that’s a bad thing though – it signals new territory.

The instrumental opener is a luxuriant lead-in to Weapons. A killer duo to start an album, I reckon.

There are lots of 80s-retro sounds, which is definitely the in-thing at the moment. I kinda like it. But I still can’t believe that the 80s are cool already.

Jars are at their best when they mellow out, stop trying to write pop songs and sing about grief, loss, doubt etc. I know that sounds morbid, but I think it’s a great relief to hear fellow Christians admit that following Jesus doesn’t solve all of your problems! So much of Christian music seems like emotional escapism compared to the kind of honesty displayed by these guys. The best example of that on this album is the amazing song Headphones:

It’s a heavy world, it’s too much for me to care
If I close my eyes, it’s not there

With my headphones on…

-

Another highlight is the closing track (Heart) – a lazy, mellow number with a spine-chillingly succinct message about God:

No mountains to climb, papers to sign

Offer your heart, I’ve given you mine

I love that Scenic Route sounds like Dire Straits. And metaphor of the year goes to Closer, which includes the delightfully poetic:

I don’t understand why we can’t get close enough

I want your kite strings tangled in my trees all wrapped up

-

To sum up, I think the album’s great. Not a masterpiece (their last album, Good Monsters, was close), but any shortcomings are at least good attempts to keep experimenting. So I’d recommend it fairly highly.

—

In other matters, possibly HUGE news! Or maybe nothing. In any case, we’d appreciate prayer about the possibility of Dave and Kathryn (and therefore us) relocating about 200km away to a village called Sungurlare. This is the neighbouring village to Slavyantsi where were visited Hasan and Emine about 10 days ago. What I didn’t mention in that post was that Hasan essentially invited D+K to move closer to his family so that he and David could do ministry together. It’s nearing decision time!

Tomorrow, David and I (possibly along with Rob, another young Aussie who’s moving to BG in August to work with D+K) are returning to Slavyantsi and the surrounding villages to investigate and ask God about it. Dave’s been praying ferociously about this and expects an answer from God by the end of the week. Great faith; I respect that!

Culturally, this would be a further complete paradigm shift for Elly and I (not to mention Aydin, as well as David and Kathryn). It’s hard to explain just how different it would be. Living in a small village (pop. 3500 compared to Haskovo @ 100,000) gives foreigners like us zero anonymity (ie. if it all gets too much, there’s nowhere to go), and provides a lot more challenges in terms of being seen to be behaving appropriately (ie. Westerners, even if they seem to be “religious”, are simply assumed to be highly immoral by the average Turk/Millet villager – we have to do everything we can to fight that assumption).

On the other hand, this is the work that David and Kathryn are here for, so the difficulties mean nothing if they feel called to Sungurlare! Please pray that God will give any/all of us wisdom in making this decision.

Enough from me,

Say g’day to Uncle Boris for me.

Cheers,

Stu.

ps. completely unrelated, but I know I’ll never share the following photo of wildflowers on the slopes of Mt. Vitosha if I don’t add it now! Enjoy.