jonnybaker

a carol i have written

earlier this year i wrote a carol or perhaps it might be better described as an advent hymn. it has been posted as part of the proost advent series here incorporating a video from jon birch. i was inspired reading isaiah 9 and in particular the imagery of verse 5:

The boots of the warrior and the uniforms bloodstained by war will all be burned. They will be fuel for the fire.

in a world with so much brutality and violence the image of a fire burning army boots and clothes of war struck a chord and a deep sense of advent longing for another possible world. that turned into lyrics for a carol or advent hymn ‘smoke is rising’. the last verse quotes arundhati roy which I am sure many of you will recognise. niall dunne has written what i think is a beautiful melody. this came about through a chance conversation at cms (niall has started the undergrad pioneer training this year). i’d love any reactions to it. even more I’d love any of you to try it out and lead it. let me know how you get on if you do though it’s a bit late possibly for this year now. i imagine it with a huge church or choir but I don’t have one of those!

my sister ruth kindly has written out the melody and chords. i should add that the guitar tuning is DADGAD which sounds lovely. hopefully you can work out what i am doing from the video if you go that route and like me are not used to that. that’s how I learned it from niall. i should say i am singing it a bit lower than niall as I struggled to reach the top note in f. ruth has written chords in f and in d and unhelpfully I am playing it in e flat!

i have not had the time or kit to record it properly so this is recorded on a phone - thanks to jon birch for his steady hand (and gorgeous lounge). maybe this will spark a new project?! and double thanks to jon who was inspired to make a movie loop of a fire of army boots and clothes of war (with help from ai) which you can see incorporated into the proost version. it's great to be able to contribute to proost which seems to have risen like a phoenix from the ashes.

here are the lyrics:

Smoke is rising
Jonny Baker and Niall Dunne

Smoke is rising from a fire
Of army boots and clothes of war.
Weapons made into ploughshares
Violence is no more
Violence is no more

You have broken slavery’s yoke
And the oppressor’s rod
Lifted the burden from our shoulders
Prince of peace, mighty God
 
Herod’s palace is in crisis
At the news of a new king.
One has come into the world
Who makes the angels sing
Who makes the angels sing

Peace on earth, peace on earth
Their chorus fills the skies
The rich will leave empty handed
The humble poor they will rise

Peace on earth x 3
Their chorus fills the skies
 
Another world is possible
She is on her way
I can hear her breathing
On a quiet day

Another world is possible
This shall be the sign
A child is born, a son is given
In darkness light will shine

Peace on earth x 3
Their chorus fills the skies

grace: remember - sat 9 november

the next grace is close to remembrance sunday. we will be taking the opportunity to pause and ponder what has happened in the last year in gaza and the west bank following the hamas attaack on october 7 2023. chris rose who is the director of amos trust will be joining us. he is very informed so do bring any questions. i will be playing a few spngs from backbone, an album i recorded in 1999 with jon birch as jonnys in the basement. they seem as poignant now as then so have reworked them for acoustic versions. there will be a cafe afterwards - everyone is always welcome.

music is sacred

this room is in the vinyl factory reverb exhibition at 180 studios. take your shoes off - a sure sign this is holy ground. sit in quiet in what feels like a sacred space and an album takes centre stage to be played for everyone to listen to. music is spiritual or can be. my own experience is that i find music has played an important part in the soundtrack of my life. It can speak to me, inspire me, help me express emotion, touch me, put into words what i don't know how to, be a prayer, accompany a prayer. i loved it - so simple, one to do at grace at some point. it got me wondering what a playlist would be of spiritual tunes. i may come back to that...

settle - ambient prayer 2

the second ambient prayer at grace on saturday went really well. the whole thing is here - ambient prayer 2 - including the playlist, card, exercises, movie and slides. we have made sure we put everything up so if anyone else wants to try it out it's all there. feel free and let us know how you get on. i am hoping to develop say a series of 6 over the next year or so. it will be quite a nice off the shelf intro to contemplative prayer.

i have enjoyed thinking about a visual idea to go with each one. this time it was an old grace idea reworked - shake up a jar and watch it settle. i  loved how it came out orange which was to do with some christmas left over syrup from making candied grapefruit - it had a bit of campari in it which helped the liquid be a bit thicker! it definitely slows you down - you know it's slow when a drip of water falling from the lid feels like some action. it lasts around 4 minutes so the challenge is to watch it all!. the average length of viewing on instagram so far is 16 seconds which tells you everything you need to know about social media and attention span.

i am adding the jar as a worship trick - why not?!

 

gigs of 2023

i have a habit/commitment to try and average a gig a month. 2023 included some incredible gigs - the standout ones were fourtet (the photo is of the 39480 lights hanging!), young fathers, alabaster de plume and of course sault. ialso loved seeing bruce cockburn again at greenbelt. the blog is a kind of diary for me so for my own memory's sake the full list was:

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble
Ezra Collective
A Winged Victory for the Sullen
Fourtet
Mavis Staples
Bruce Cockburn (at Greenbelt)
Mercury prize
Young Fathers
Matthew Halsall
Alabaster de Plume
Gotts Street Park
Bears Den
Sault

let it go

i listen to a lot of pretty ambient or horizontal music. so i have taken to making a playlist of just that more chilled music each year. this year's has 16 tracks that are beatless followed by 16 with some beats in. this is partly after a discussion with a friend who shares a like for ambient music but likes some beats. it runs for about 2.5 hours. i have designed it so that it builds gently as it goes though you can of course put it on shuffle. in january and february grace will be running ambient prayer which will be playing this sort of music so look out for that shortly.

let it go - apple music version

let it go - spotify version

 

are we there yet?

i do love putting together an end of year playlist. i seem to have added a lot to my first take which i have got down to a 3 hour playlist of a selection of tunes from 2023.

are we there yet? apple music version

are we there yet? spotify version

come to the edge

jen and i are just back from two weeks holiday in canada. it felt weird to be going away this time of year as we always go in the summer (largely because i am involved in teaching students). friends who we shared a house with back when we lived in bath invited us to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary with them along with a group of around 20 for 4 days. my team at cms kindly said it was fine to go and seeing as we were going that far we made a fortnight of it. it was so good to catch up with aad and jeanette in paris (ontario), and we explored a few other spots in ontario - mainly ottawa and manatoulin island. we visited niagara falls which is completely mesmerising. you can get surprisingly close to where the falls roll over the edge - that's where the photo above is from.

i have added a set of holiday photos to flickr. there are quite a few of them be warned - canada 2023. canada is a beautiful country. i hope i'll find space to blog a few thoughts in the next week or so. but first things first - photos!

i also seem to be making a habit of going to a gig the day i get back from n america (well that's two in a row) and you always fly overnight so i hope i stay awake for the young fathers tonight!

the photo title come to the edge is one i used recently in a team day - it's taken from a 1 giant leap track of that name. the opening words are

Come to the edge we said and they said ‘no it’s too high'
Come to the edge we said and they said ‘no we will fall’
Come to the edge we said and they very reluctantly came
And we pushed and they flew

nick cave and sean o hagan on the sacred

the sacred podcast interview with nick cave and sean o hagan is really remarkable. i have seen nick cave many times and love his music. i have been intrigued by or drawn to the spiritual quest that seems to infuse his song writing in places. seeing him and warren ellis at the royal albert hall last year was a spiritual experience which ended in prayer or a kind of blessing. he wrote an intro to marks gospel in the canongate series some years back. his letters to the community that rallies around or towards him are honest and searching pastoral letters of a sort. some have called it the church of nick cave! i have also been blown away by the films of the last few years especially one more time with feeling which is the most raw thing i think i have ever seen on grief, grief for the loss of his son arthur. 

the podcast explores the themes in the book faith hope and carnage (which i have not read but now will definitely do so) and the theme of the sacred. it is so interesting to hear nick suggest that it is easier to find the sacred in the world than in religion - the natural world, wild swimming, music and art, and so forth. i find the same to be true. but he also loves church spaces and the sense of mystery that is there. i found myself strongly resonating with the notion that christianity has diminished god with its certitude and stridentness which makes it so difficult for those reaching towards god. it's a beautiful conversation. there is a transcript on the podcast page but i do recommend listening.

tunes of the year

i love music and i seem to like putting together a playlist so as is my habit here are two playlists for the end of year.

the first is a very ambient one - 2022 horizontal [apple music] or 2022 horizontal [spotify]

and the second more a mix of genres of some of the tunes i have enjoyed through the year - 2022 tunes [apple music] or 2022 tunes [spotify] . they are all tunes released during the year.

enjoy and do leave a comment to let me know what you think!

sault come up with five gospel albums free - godislove

sault are a wonderful band who produced some great funky political grooves over the last few years. they seemed to catch the moment post george floyd's murder - i found them a great comfort in lockdown. they are a bit shrouded in mystery and announcements suddenly appear like today's which was on twitter and instagram as above - 5 albums released simultaneously as an offering to god!!! i have not had a chance to listen through but they sound very gospel - and they are available for free for 5 days. the password is in the message (and the message is godislove btw). there is no guarantee these albums will subsequently appear on spotify or apple music so get downloading. it is for real. i have to add this as a worship trick - remember those?! but typepad is currently so poor that i can't access them so will add to the list later. joy!

the link is here

end of 2021 playlists

as always a couple of playlists at the end of the year. i listen to quite a lot of quiet instrumental music and find that makes for a better experience as its own playlist rather than mixed in with the other tunes hence there are two. i have added them on apple music and spotify. there is one tune that spotify didn't have so apple win that contest!

• 2021 tunes - apple 
• 2021 tunes - spotify
• 2021 horizontal - apple
• 2021 horizontal - spotify

end of year playlists

i love music and have always been in the habit with some friends of compiling and exchanging playlists for the end of the year. we used to do that via burning cds but now it's much easier to do via streaming services. the last few years i have actually taken to creating two because i listen to so much ambient/instrumental music that i ended up thinking that was better as a separate playlist. anyway here are the playlists and a bit more reflection on them below

2020 tunes on apple music or

2020 tunes on spotify

(for the record there is one tune that was not on spotify so that is one short - 1-0 apple!)

2020 horizontal on apple music

2020 horizontal on spotify

this year perhaps more than any other, music has been a great source of comfort and inspiration. i always listen to a lot of instrumental music but i have found quiet ambient music especially soothing. two things really inspired me in that regard - one was jon hopkins posting a playlist of his on apple music which consisted of 24 hours of ambient music (!) and the other is the curated playlist on apple music called pure ambient which has 100 tunes at any one time but that includes quite a lot of recent releases as well as more classic tunes. through those i have discovered the likes of snufmumriko (i had to include a tune in the playlist which is possibly my most played tune of the year but it came out in 2019 - don't tell anyone), antonymes (whose album like rumours of hushed thunder ois gorgeous but didn't feature as it came out in 2015) and ian hawgood.

but the other way music featured for me this year was in relation to black lives matter and the whole cultural debate and protest after george floyd's death. i found the response of dj's such as gilles petersen really amazing in how they played what seemed like just the right tunes of protest, lament and justice. his club lockdown was a wonderful moment in the year. i also really was inspired and challenged by steve mcqueen's incredible series small axe and the soundtrack to those was fantastic. so these playlists below are not tunes that were released in 2020 but they feel like they belong to the year as much if not more so than the playlists above. the first is simply a set of tunes i have added to through the year that i called blm (black lives matter) though i have not ordered it in any fashion so might be best played on random select. the second is the tunes i liked (which is most) from the small axe series - if you want all the tunes i have added the link below to the official playlist on spotify.

blm apple playlist

small axe apple playlist

small axe official spotify playlist

that should keep you going for a while! 

tunes 2019

i love music and yes it's that time of year. if you are on apple music (and are interested) you can look me up and simply add 2019 selection . it's about 3 hours long as i think that's the length of a decent radio show and if ever invited onto bbc6music i am ready! most of the tunes have been discovered or heard there to be honest. lots of people i know are on spotify and i don't tend to use apple so here is a list of my selection of tunes for this year curated into some kind of order. i love instrumental music and as i did last year have also made a 2019 horizontal playlist though i seemed to come across a bit less this year - that is also below. a few of those intro and outro the main selection. my actual playlist for 2019 is around 14 hours so i won't bother sharing that one though i really love it.

[update - harry being a spotify user and keen to listen to the playlist created a spotify one so i can now share that all you spotify users - the one track not on spotify is vin gordon's african shores but apart from that i think they are all there... here's the link JonnyBakerBestOf19 ]

weird fact - this year i listened to four albums that came out by people who are dead - leonard cohen, gang starr, marvin gaye, john coltrane. 

• sea watch - floating points
• the haunted victorian pencil - a winged victory for the sullen
• a walking embrace - nils frahm
• debushy - kenny segal
• earth tone - simiah and the phantom ensemble
• uman - kokoroko
• mark sampson (feat carlosoverall extended mix) - kassa overall
• icy roads )stacked) - joe armon jones
• jupiter - kinkajous
• what am i to do? (feat loyle carner) - ezra collective
• free my skin - steam down
• wake up - old paradice, confucius mc and morriarchi
• ill wind - radiohead
• a caged bird/limitations of life (feat roots manuva) - the cinematic orchestra
• family and loyalty (feat j cole) - gang starr
• get it together - ted jasper
• cool water (justice rolls down like a river) - brian owens
• joy - the cranes
• that's how the good lord works - sunday service choir
• this is what love looks like - carlton jumel smith
• let me go - sault
• heaven (feat andreya triana) - the vision
• rise up - the freedom affair
• eternal light - free nationals and chronixx
• african shores - vin gordon
• temptations - jitwam
• please won't please - helado negro
• heroist - apparat
• traffic - thom yorke
• healer (feat theophilus london) - jnr williams
• evening time (feat knucks and etta bond) - oscar #worldpeace
• therapy - little simz
• breathe in - technimatic
• valley of paradise - psychemagik
• blood orange - else hewitt
• plain jane - rhi
• doin' time - lana del rey
• solid ground - michael kiwanuka
• the soil - david benjamin blower
• bright horses - nick cave
• listen to the hummingbird - leonard cohen
• meditation app - ryuichi sakamoto
• moments in love - kara-lis coverdale

and the horizontal playlist...

• home - aukai
• a walking embrace - nils frahm
• zerzura theme i - ahmoudou madassane
• run - tara jane o'neil
• odemark - isorinne
• billow - ultra straus
• istid iii pt iv - northaunt
• shallow, shadowless - earthen sea
• bridget's theme - adam bryanbaum wiltzie
• meditation app - ryuichi sakamoto
• equivalent 7 (feat secret pyramid) - loscil
• untitled, live in portland - sarah davachi
• am see - ben lukas boysen
• drei projektile - ben lukas boysen
• the haunted victorian pencil - a winged victory for the sullen
• the rhythm of a dividing pair - a winged victory for the sullen
• sea watch - floating points
• the slow descent has begun - a winged victory for the sullen
• moments in love - kara-lis coverdale

harry and chris tour

been meaning to blog this for a while but harry and chris are now on tour so check out their dates on the web site and see if they are coming near you. they are in oxford tomorrow i noticed. we'll be going to their london gig on sat 20 dec if anyone fancies it - see you there?!

harry baker - i am 10000

tomorrow night i am going to see harry's new poetry show i am 10000 (which he will be performing at edinburgh along with harry and chris new show). come along if you are in london and you get to see chris' solo show as well - weird i know. harry and chris but not harry n chris or something...

super proud of harry - just saw today that he has 2 million hits on his exteter tedX talk - wow. i am generally delirious if i get over 50 likes on an instagram photo! i need to up my game clearly though inspired by harry i worked out i will be 20000 days this year on the same day as joel's birthday.

i should also add that the rejected eurovision song contest entry of harry and chris - sorry! - is out today...

a day off!

had a wonderful day off yesterday - the weather is amazing at the moment - sadly probably global warming! but i visited two exhibtions and went to see massive attack in concert in the evening. one of the exhibitions was life death rebirth with bill viola video installations and michael angelo drawings. i'd actualluy seen a lot of the viola installations at various exhibitions over the years but it is amazing. i am convinced my heart rate was slower when i came out - i think we took getting on for a couple of hours going round. his work is very spiritual drawing on religious themes. i found the curators comments next to some pieces quite annoying though! one of things that was strange was how the view of spirituality seemed to buy into a negative view of the world and the notion of getting the soul out - it's kind of a platonic view of the world that has informed some bad what i call escaplogy theology over the years. the worst case of it was next to a drawing by michael angelo of the resurrected christ which was a really great drawing of a body bursting out with energy and the curator had sai something like a suprising embodied drawing of the resurrected christ - duh! what exactly did you think the resurrection is if not a body???!!! anyway that aside it is a fantastic exhibition. this photo is of the piece fire woman which is amazing - possibly my favourite piece. of course there are no photos allowed by i took this photo years back at an exhibition where i got thrown out for taking photos which is the only time that has ever happend to me.

massive attack were great as ever - i have no idea how many times i have seen them - a lot! but just as in the manchester international festival adam curtis was doing the visuals. it was a wide ranging set of visuals of life in our crazy world - once again he was opening up the idea that we are stuck in our own past rather than able to imagine a different future as we are fed things based on feedback llops - you like this so you'll love that. one memorable sequence was a series of projected slogans from politicians that sounded great in their own right but when projected together came across as hollow slogans which is what we have got used to. it was pretty bleak... but i found it also woke me up - it's so easy to be numb.

it's so great living in london!

tunes

every new year i tend to go through music from the previous year and compile a playlist or two. here's my 2018 selection. it probably tries to do too much or has too many kinds of music though i've tried to give it a flow. i found it pretty interesting how political it is this year - art alway has something to say and is like the nerve endings in feeling what's happening in the culture i guess. anyway see what you think...

2018 selection:

• Fingers of Thought - CV & JAB
• Forever Changeless - Nils Frahm
• This Is America - Childish Gambino
• Shot Gun Shack - Neneh Cherry
• If Only - Kojey Radical
• No White God - Oscar #Worldpeace
• Understand What Black Is - The Last Poets
• Blaxploitation - Noname
• Struggle Sounds - Seun Kuti & Egypt 80
• Abusey Junction - Kokoroko
• A Metallick Taste (feat. Jonah Levine Collective) - Daedelus
• Street Fighter Mas - Kamasi Washington
• Gabriel - Jono McCleery
• Allocate - Damien Jurado
• Now That I'm a River - Charles Watson
• The Soul Searchers - Paul Weller
• A Trick of the Light - Villagers
• Runnin’ (feat. Georgia Anne Muldrow) - Blood Orange
• Ottolenghi - Loyle Carner & Jordan Rakei
• Pass Me the Ashtray (feat. IAMDDB) - The Mouse Outfit
• Last Last Fall - Jonwayne Last Last Fall
• I'll Be on Your Mind - Skinny Pelembe
• Carry Me (feat. Obongjayar & Yazz Ahmed) - Everything Is Recorded
• Energy (feat. Nadeem Din-Gabisi) - Sampa the Great Energy (feat. Nadeem Din-Gabisi)
• Water - Kojey Radical, Mahalia & Swindle
• Somehow Somewhere Someway (feat. Umar Bin Hassan) - Ty
• Flyby Vfr - Skee Mask
• Con Moto - String Theory
• Bad Bad News - Leon Bridges
• Judge Not (Ray Mang Disco Mix) - Phenomenal Handclap Band
• Natural Sci-Fi - Steve Spacek
• Unmade - Thom Yorke
• Echo Dissolve - Jon Hopkins
• Life, Life (Andy Stott Remodel) - Ryuichi Sakamoto
• nyepi - Ólafur Arnalds

2018 horizontal:

and then i found going through that i had discovered a lot of instrumental music i loved so also have done a 2018 horizontal playlist. i have not particularly ordered this one so put it on random and see what happens. both run over a couple of hours or so. i am on apple music so you can find the lists there as i think i have made them public. if not i can send you a link if interested.

• Colorado - Aukai
• Fingers of Thought - CV & JAB
• Fundamental Values - Nils Frahm
• Some Limited and Waning Memory (feat. Echo Collective)- Christina Vantzou
• Forever Changeless - Nils Frahm
• Sunson - Nils Frahm
• Another Long Evening - Kronos Quartet & Laurie Anderson
• This Trip - Nightports & Matthew Bourne
• Virtues - Dedekind Cut
• Long May It Sustain - A Winged Victory For The Sullen
• Quebec (Climber)- Bing & Ruth Quebec (Climber)
• A Catalogue of Afternoons - Max Richter
• Circle - Goldmund
• Life, Life (Andy Stott Remodel) - Ryuichi Sakamoto
• Ringing - Nils Frahm
• Feel First Life - Jon Hopkins
• Recovery - Jon Hopkins
• Echo Dissolve - Jon Hopkins
• Dreaming - Jon Hassell
• Solan Goose - Erland Cooper
• saman - Ólafur Arnalds
• Whaup - Erland Cooper
• Circle (Reprise)Phil France
• Selva Oscura 1.1 - William Basinski & Lawrence English
• Below - Lapalux
• La Joya - Aukai
• Unblocked - Djrum
• nyepi - Ólafur Arnalds
• momentary - Ólafur Arnalds
• brot - Ólafur Arnalds
• In a Remote Place - Craig Armstrong

a huge thanks to bbc 6 music where i have heard many of the tracks. and i have seen some amazing gigs this year including kendrick lamar, seun kuti, nils frahm, olafur arnalds, lauryn hill, flying lotus - i love music! and it was also the end of an era with mary anne hobbs moving on from the weekend breakfast shows on 6 music after six years (sigh).

 

 

harry and chris save the world tour

harry and chris are on tour soon - see here for dates. oxford which is early on has sold out and i have booked in for leicester square even though it is december as that seemed to be selling fast. so check out their dates and go see them if you can. they played greenbelt mainstage this year off the back of a sold out run at edinburgh festival and it was an incredible show to be at. they always seem to have so much fun but what was striking at greenbelt was how many people knew them and knew the words to songs and poems. it was a proud parent moment for sure! i am happy to have contributed some photography for harry and chris publicity and this year's tour poster photo is one of mine again (though the making it snazzy through photoshop is someone else's work).

hanwell hootie

saturday is the hanwell hootie - a festival of free music. grace normally meet on this saturday but we have a retreat day so there is no greace in the evening so will be free to go along. i am actually helping out at a cafe fade to black where there will be djs and a bar so do pop in and say hi if you are between venues.