Who ever thought that "hymns" and "cool" could find themselves intentionally and undecidably electronically embossed over a tasty conversationally-thick-spread sentence? A fellow by the name of Jon Green has endeavored to make it so. Our generation generally would not choose to spend a hard-earned $10 or so on a cover charge to hear and see traditional hymns performed. Call us superficial and uncultured (not to mention cheap) but we have a hard time not associating hymns with dry, boring, tight-fisted religion handed down to us by our seemingly guilt-ridden ancestors. Doesn't sound very cool. JG HYMNS clearly disagrees and when you take a look past all the dusty, dysfunction-caked annals of the catholic and christian institutional church you see these gorgeous poetical masterpieces which talk of heart-deep relational experience with a person and they call that person "god". Spend even a few minutes with a few of the more famous ones and you see that they are unmistakably beautiful works.
JG HYMNS helps dust off these fine pieces of art to see them for what they are; sans misguided church dogma and off-center historical bad choices and negative personal associations. I had the opportunity to interview JG himself and ask him first hand about his music and his neighborhood in Scotland. Unfortunately I wasn't too keen on the skype recording technology so the entire interview was fairly worthless but we should still add it to the annals of the king that it did in fact happen.
Life happens; you may have been burnt by a church or, more accurately, a person in a church in one way or another. Maybe in a small way, maybe in a large way considering the recent press the catholic church in particular has received. But church, people and God are all different things. The former two, broken. The latter you may have your thoughts on and so do the folks who wrote hymns...and so does JG HYMNS.
However, even if you can put your church and hymn associations away for a moment and put on your listening caps for some simply gorgeous melodies, harmonies and creative instrumentation - you are in for a treat. From a few listenings, my favs are not actually hymns but songs written by JG. "Deborah" became my fast favorite, firing off synapses in my brain that drew me to dream of Radiohead and Muse infused with a bit of samba, Mexican hat dancing and oh yes, Alt J. I smile while listening and that's always my first line of song/album evaluation: do I want to keep listening?
I'd also recommend "Funeral Song" do give you an idea of the slow groovy-creative side of JG.
The answer is yes: Mr. Green plays the trumpet, guitar, takes care of some of the percussion, does the recording, beautifies the multi-track vocals and even answers emails (like mine). I'm boasting about him, but you'd never find him boasting about himself - heck - you might not even know he's this talented or even that he plays music at all if you got into a conversation with him on the street or in one of Edinburgh's many fine pubs. Perhaps he'd be talking politics or sports at The Dome, The Last Drop or The Tron. Though he clearly wouldn't be afraid to delve into the reckless humanity of an unloved wife, a recent death, a secret spilled, humility challenged, grief in extended suffering (or griefs made to sing), the fleeting nature of possessions and the list goes on and on and could be longer than the table of contents in a typical hymnal.
Put this album on high volume with your best speakers and turn up the BASS. A good pair of headphones will do you well. Thanks for the history lesson, JG, and the electronic treat-filled tunes. The next time JG is playing in a pub in Edinburgh, it's Edinburgh OR BUST for this reviewer.
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