Sojourn Music – Over the Grave Review, part 1
Travis recently asked me to post some thoughts on the new Sojourn Album, Over the Grave: the hymns of Isaac Watts, volume 1.
This album is the first of a two-album Isaac Watts project by Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, Kentucky. (Though a Baptist church, Sojourn is also affiliated with the Acts 29 Network, a group seeking to plant gospel-saturated churches worldwide.) This album has been described by the musicians at Sojourn as “Hi-Wattage”, meaning an indie-rock feel, while the next album will be more folk/acoustic influenced, hence, “Lo-Wattage”.
Let’s get the genre out of the way. There’s no way I would describe this as an indie-rock album. But that’s not a bad thing. It’s just an inaccurate genre designation to place on an album with such a variety of sounds. For one thing, producers Mike Cosper and Neil Robins have outdone themselves in making this album different from their other albums. While I enjoyed Advent Songs (especially the new tune for “Joy to the World”), this album is on a completely different level of creativity of lyric writing, composition, and arranging.
This is not a project like Red Mountain Church or Indelible Grace or even my own music. These are not hymn texts with new tunes. They are new compositions inspired by the hymn texts. This becomes clear by comparing one of the pieces. On the left is Isaac Watts’ Hymn 15 and on the right is Sojourn’s “May Your Power Rest on Me”, inspired by that hymn.
Hymn 15Our own weakness, and Christ our strength. Let me but hear my Savior say, I glory in infirmity, I can do all things, or can bear But if the Lord be once withdrawn, [So Samson, when his hair was lost, |
May Your Power Rest on MeWritten by Joel Gerdis and Neil Robins Let me hear my Savior say, Chorus: Let me know my Savior’s face; Chorus Once from the Lord withdrawn Chorus Though the trial still goes on, |
I’ll have more thoughts tomorrow. If you’ve heard this album, what are your thoughts?
The first stanza of Watts Hymn 14 appears as Stanza 2, using tunename “Gethsemane” in J. L. Clapp, Ancient Harmony Revived (1849), recently recorded by a cappella by Tim Eriksen & his Northampton Harmony quartet.
Here the first stanza is from #429 Psalms and Hymns Adapted to Social, Private and Public Worship: in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (1843, Philadelphia)
When struggling on the bed of pain,
And earth and all its joys are vain.
How sweet, my God, to know thy power
Sustains me in this trying hour!
Notice the part of the hymnbook title that says “Social, Private and Public Worship” — where “social” refers group hymnsinging outside of Sabbath observance.
If anyone can help me find music for “Gethsemane” I would be much obliged, because this fits nicely into the categories of “social” and “private” worship.
David Olson
Culver City CA