Notable CDs

Ecovillage is Emil Holström and Peter Wikström, and they’ve described these 16 synthesizer compositions as meditations on Mark’s Gospel. The first is “Voice of One Calling in the Wilderness,” the last “Resurrection.” Between are songs with titles such as “Transfiguration” and “Gethsemane.” Actually, “songs” isn’t quite right. There are no melodies, rhythms, or words (unless the barely audible disciple recitation that occurs during the fade-out of “The Twelve Are Chosen” counts). So “meditations” will have to do. And more gorgeously efflorescent meditations you’d be hard-pressed to find.

Losing My Religion

The slam poem that begins this album articulates Franklin’s attempt to go beyond denominational theology and to experience Jesus directly. It’s a lot like Scott Wesley Brown’s 39-year-old “I’m Not Religious, I Just Love the Lord” that way. The full-ensemble, irrepressibly enthusiastic R&B numbers that follow testify to the abundant fruits of Franklin’s attempt. About that ensemble: It includes 22 vocalists, a reminder that one definition of “religion” is “beliefs held in common by a group.” About Franklin’s first name: It’s Scottish for “church.”

Church Clothes 3

It’s amazing how much rappers can accomplish when they liberate their vocabularies by forgoing profanity. Including refrains, Lecrae and his featured singers and co-rappers cram over 6,000 words into 36½ minutes, and every word counts. The theology is sound, the humor is witty, and the history and self-awareness aren’t bad either. The Sugarhill Gang is one of the few relevant touchstones that doesn’t get a shoutout, but extending and sanctifying the possibilities inherent in “Rapper’s Delight” is what Lecrae is all about.

Healing River

From one perspective, Healing River is simply these a cappella Mennonites’ latest attempt to unify diverse strands of Christian song. From another, it’s an example both of the worthiness of their goal and of the increasing luminosity of their illuminated musical manuscripts. As usual, they juxtapose well-known hymns and church-camp songs with obscurities. This time, however, the latter include a title track composed by Fran Minkoff and Fred Kellerman for Pete Seeger, suggesting that the chorale’s ecumenicism is as culturally imaginative as it is religiously devout.

Spotlight

Wake Up! Music Album with His Words and Prayers (Believe Digital) is an ambitious attempt to set excerpts of the current pope’s homilies to music. Stylistically, it weds Enya to Alan Parsons. Linguistically, it speaks in tongues (mostly Spanish and Italian) and sings in Latin. Theologically, it risks putting off Protestants with Mariology (“Salve Regina,” “Fazei o Que Ele Vos Disser!”) and skeptics of Al Gore–approved science with environmentalism (“Cuidar el Planeta”).

These obstacles, however, are not insurmountable. The accompanying booklet, for instance, includes English translations. And, with no more imagination than it takes to consider a half-empty glass half full, one can experience the music’s refusal to retain the shape of any one genre as a way of holding overfamiliarity (and hence boredom) at bay. As for the theological stumbling blocks, Protestants can remember them but also appreciate the album’s overarching Christocentricity and Francis’ declaration that “faith in Jesus Christ is not a joke.”—A.O.