Spiritual yearnings

Refuge

David Berger & Joyce Rosenzweig

The subtitle, Art Songs by Jewish American Refugee Composers, complements both the Statue of Liberty cover art and the inclusion of Irving Berlin’s “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor.” But the refuge being sought in Lazar Weiner’s Three Biblical Songs (“Isaiah,” “Ezekiel,” “Ruth”), Gershon Kingsley’s setting of Psalm 23, Israel Alter’s setting of Psalm 13, and Heinrich Schalit’s Visions of Yehuda Halevi clearly includes more than protection from this-worldly persecution. And whether singing in Yiddish, Hebrew, English, or Spanish, David Berger, cantor of Chicago’s KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation, expresses their yearnings with an articulate and earthy sincerity. 

Frälst! A Selection of Swedish Christian Grooves 1969-1979 

Various artists

Unless you were a churchgoing resident of Sweden during the decade cited in this compilation’s title, the world into which its 20 songs (21 on vinyl) offer glimpses is probably one you never knew existed. And, no, it doesn’t mirror the Jesus rock concurrently shaping up in the U.S. Stylistically, the Swedes were even further behind the times. Wah-wah guitars were the bell bottoms of music, several songs echo the Cowsills, and Mission Possible’s homage to Deep Purple’s Book of Taliesyn (“Mission Possible”) and Obadja’s to Detroit rock and roll (“Testa”) didn’t emerge until 1971 and 1977 respectively. Still, as retro goes, they make a better-than-average first impression.

From the Womb of the Morning, the Dew of Your Youth Will be Yours

Ronnie Martin

The Bandcamp photo of the former Joy Electric mastermind and current Evangelical Free Church of America pastor Ronnie Martin shows him literally out standing in a field. It’s an apt metaphor, even if the field in which he’s figuratively outstanding—faith-based, all-synthesizer music (orchestral maneuvers in the light?)—is hardly overpopulated. For his first album in a decade, he has added to his painstakingly layered, self-created sci-fi sounds an actual drum machine and based songs on Psalms 89, 110, 147, 104 (twice), Ecclesiastes 12, and Isaiah 58. All seven sparkle and swirl. Plus, they have good beats and you can dance to them.

Kingdom Sentiments 

Casner Psallo & Mofunk Gospel

Psallo is a South African singer-musician with a voice that blends Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson and whose Facebook motto reads “I create music [and] content that encourages people to see, feel and hear God in/through everything.” By “God,” Psallo means Yahweh, and by “music” he means a rippling stream of percolating percussion with an almost complete absence of deep bass frequencies. (Apparently, “funk,” let alone “mo’ funk,” means something different in Pretoria and Johannesburg than it ever has in the U.S.) Guest vocalists deliver some of the sentiments, which like the melodies are meant to buoy and encourage. Most encouraging of all: Psallo keeps the auto-tuning to a minimum.

Encore

Obviously, no one who invested in Time Life’s 16-disc Hank Williams box The Complete Mother’s Best Recordings … Plus! 12 years ago needs BMG’s new two-CD (or three-LP) excerpt, I’m Gonna Sing: The Mother’s Best Gospel Radio Recordings, the improved sound quality courtesy of the engineer Michael Graves notwithstanding. But there’s no denying the otherworldly eeriness that follows upon hearing Williams put his heart into these live-in-the-studio performances of hymns, spirituals, and ­gospel originals.

After all, he would be dead less than two years after these recordings were made, a period during which he reached his professional zenith only to plummet earthward as he divorced his first wife Audrey (who lends her voice to four I’m Gonna Sing tracks) and became addicted to painkillers and alcohol. Is it too much to hope that as he closed his eyes for the last time it was something like “Softly and Tenderly,” “Where the Soul Never Dies,” or “I Heard My Savior Calling Me” that was running through his head? —A.O.