June 26, 2013

Terrence Malick has become the psalmist of film. His characters continually ask the fundamental questions of theological pursuit.

Ben Bedford creates cinematic folk music with the wisdom and depth of someone twice his age. “John the Baptist” is a rousing song despite its minor key, thanks to its carousel of organ, slide guitar and backbeat drums (“The devil skulks ’round every bend / And a broken soul you cannot mend / Not till you raise repentant hands”). Another standout, “Fire in His Bones,” pays tribute to an itinerant blues guitarist “with that blaze in his blood / and that brown Delta mud.”

This collection draws on Carrie New­comer’s dozen releases on Rounder, adding two new tracks that continue in her tradition of exploring spiritual dimensions in everyday life. Newcomer’s gentle alto welcomes the listener with more warmth than a cappuccino. On one of the new songs, “The Speed of Soul,” she takes us on a whirlwind trip in which we meet a homeless girl, shuffle through stacks of meaningless e-mails, and join her lament that “We’re gathering crumbs and stones / Been traveling faster than our souls can go.”

Faith House wants people to engage other faiths—not by focusing on commonalities but by entering into a sacred space on its own terms.

It’s easy to write Kris Kristofferson off as another country songwriter trawling the shallows of whiskey, diesels and cornpone imagery. But that’s a myopic read of the Rhodes scholar, William Blake devotee, Golden Gloves boxer and helicopter pilot.

This project by producers Paul Mar­steller and Gabriel Rhodes is an ad­mirable tribute to pre–World War I popular music. Each singer is accompanied only by instruments from the song’s period. Richard Thomson’s sly baritone curls around “The Band Played On” like a handlebar mustache, while Graham Parker tackles “The Flying Trapeze” with saloon-and-sarsaparilla panache. And Jolie Goodnight’s “I Love You Truly”—crooned to the accompaniment of violin, piano and brushes—conjures visions of men in bowlers.

"I eventually realized that leaders are not made by books or workshops," says Lisa Yebuah of Edenton Street United Methodist Church in Raleigh, North Carolina. "Leaders are people who marry their knowledge to action."

The latest six-song effort by Beki Hemingway—a distant relative of Ernest—finds her in fine voice, singing with a poised balance of tough and tender. And she has an able partner in husband-guitarist Randy Kerkman, who coproduces this disc. “Lose My Mind” is a torn and frayed rocker, while the spirited chamber ballad “Finnieston” weaves a spellbinding but spare canvas out of cello, acoustic guitar and bells. Big Plans will delight fans of Lucinda Williams, the Jayhawks and other top-tier Americana acts.

For some churches in North Dakota, the oil boom is a threat. For others it's an opportunity to relate to new neighbors.

In a slum settlement outside Cairo, Coptic Christians do a dirty job that no one else wants to do.