Today I am writing the first of what I hope to be many posts in a series I am entitling: Anthropomorphic Trumpet Stompers - The Best of Experimental Christian Music. Hopefully, this will be an on-going feature even if the words experimental, music and Christian don't usually go together. You can find a taster playlist I've put together of all the artists mentioned here (and I'll continue to add to it as the series goes on).
I'm looking forward to introducing y'all to some absolute gems whilst also discovering some for myself as we go along. So without further ado, let's dive in to our first look at this week's Anthropomorphic Trumpet Stompers...
DANIELSON
The Original Trumpet Stompers
Mad, experimental, musically compelling, and full of beans, Danielson is exactly the reason I started this blog. Think early Arcade Fire meets the Fantastic Mr Fox soundtrack with a large dose of weird. The band is mostly made up of one family and there's something refreshing about their unabashed embrace of their kindred weirdness but also their unashamed Christian faith. This makes them not only one of the more original Christian bands out there, but also one of the more faith affirming - they are who they are and believe what they believe but they're not going to jam it down your throat but they're also not going to apologise for believing in Christ - a rare quality.
Obviously their weirdness isn't everyone's cup of tea and sometimes Daniel's falsetto vocals can be a little grating but (as Mark Kermode always says), I'd far rather someone try something new and interesting and miss the mark slightly than make something nice and polished but completely unoriginal and boring.
The group's outfits do look more at home on a Mormon airline though...
SOUL-JUNK
Is that a millipede or a salamander?
I feel like Soul-Junk are one of those bands you discover at 3am and listen to until the dawn light appears at which point you decide to fall asleep and awake late into the afternoon with no idea whether any of what you listened to really existed, was just a fever dream, or simply the sounds of a broken record frying in a church crematorium during the organist's audible panic as the demo button on the electric keyboard they have on loan from the local youth group is stuck on repeat and all that anyone can do is repeatedly press the tempo increase button to drain the keyboard batteries dry whilst the fumes from the crematorium slowly fill the room and choke everyone to death.
It's really quite captivating stuff.
I mean what do you expect from a band who released 26 records between 1995 and 2015 entitled consecutively from 1932 to 1961 and tried to put the entire Bible into musical format? It doesn't get more trumpet stomping than that does it?
Also fun fact, not only does Danielson and Sufjan Stevens feature on some of their records, Soul-Junk were also featured on this 20th Anniversary Shrimper Compilation (the very same record label The Mountain Goats started on) which sent me down an absolute musical rabbit hole...and also featured the next artist I'm going to talk about.
AMPS FOR CHRIST
Felt tip pens - remember them?
Oh man. Where to start. I don't know if this guy is a hermit, a wizard, or an anthropomorphic banjo. Known outside of music as Henry Barnes, Amps for Christ is his lighter and more bagpipe oriented music project. Alongside Amps for Christ, Barnes is more well known in the experimental/hardcore world for his powerviolence project Man is the Bastard where much screaming and much noise can be heard - much of which is levelled at the 00s Bush regime and anger at the destruction of the natural world (he also did an album with none other than America's most well know death row inmate, Mumia Abu-Jamal).
Amps for Christ is probably the most out there I'll go and there is a steep entry curve to some of Barnes' work but a good place to start is the album The Beggars Garden which is probably the best work of Amps for Christ in my opinion. There is a palpable tension in amongst the peculiar squeaks and hums of his bagpipe-come-guitar as he mixes the worlds of folk music and noise music without ever going too far in either direction.
There is a great interview with Henry Barnes on the Low Profile with Markly Morrison (see above) where he talks about his spirituality and faith, including an interesting discussion around right wing Christianity, the kindness of Satanists, and why he's unashamed of being a follower of Christ. He's no theologian and there's problematic aspects of a lot of what he talks about but there's such a soul truth coming from this guy; it's very refreshing.
Half-Handed Cloud
This video is super cute. Watch it even if you don't like the music.
I first heard about Half-Handed Cloud on the You Have Permission podcast (see below) where they were talking about Christian music which was less CCM oriented. At one point they mentioned Half-Handed Cloud as this more experimental artist and Dan said it was a little too out there for him. Ironically, they're probably the least experimental on this blog but they get an honourable mention because they do push the boat out as much as they can.
It's a little too banjo/twinkly for me and can sometimes feel a little heavy handed with the Christian themes, but as one reviewer on their bandcamp puts it, "The Bible deserves weirdos reinterpreting it & putting it in new context & disobeying song structure & warping tapes to perfection." I've included them as their mention on the YHP podcast partly inspired me to start this blog as a way to showcase and discover more like it.
That's all for this week. More to come where these came from. Onward Christian Trumpet Stompers.