Merry Christmas to my friends on the Julian Calendar! This version of “For God Is With Us,” is done in an Appalachian choir style. I can’t think of anything more American or more Orthodox that this organic piece of work.
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There will be no reviews either today or tomorrow as Orthodox Christians observe Christmas Eve and the Nativity on what was always the Ecumenical Church Calendar until the devising of the modern Gregorian Calendar, so for those who hold to the Councils, today is December 24. We wish you a Merry Christmas (again), and leave you with today’s selection, a hymn of wailing by Saint King David by the Georgian folk group, Trio Mandili. Be well.
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We celebrate Eastern Orthodox Holy Week and today is Good Friday according to the Julian Calendar. May your Paschal season end peacefully. Thanks to St. Elizabeth Orthodox Church out of Murfreesboro, Tennessee for the wonderful and timely hymns.
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For my friends in the West, today is Good Friday, and I wish you a wonderful, blessed and prosperous Paschal celebration. I send you a gift in the form of the ensemble DÜNYA offering Christian and Islamic chants in celebration of Holy Weekend and Easter.
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The now-legendary Antonovka Records have done astounding work documenting music from Russia’s myriad of ethnic communities. This one is from the so-called “Polish” Old Believers in the Altai region. From the label’s Bandcamp site: “The ancestors of the Altai “Polish” Old Believers were peasants of the Vetka-Starodub territory of the priestly Old Believers, who fled from the persecution of the authorities to the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and to the bordering area of the Starodub regiment as part of the Russia. Upon her accession to the throne, Catherine II invited the Old Believers to return to Russia with a manifesto. However, they…
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Minimal synths, plinking and plonking keyboard, a gothic air, a mention of the Orthodox work The Way Of The Pilgrim, and dedicated to the memory of St. Olav the Holy Martyr-King – that was enough to perk my interest in the band Digre. The notes on their Bandcamp site makes them sound like fascinating people doing an interesting project and will be shared on the holiest of days in the Orthodox calendar. May your day be calm and peaceful.
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No reviews today, as we celebrate the victory of Christ over death itself. May you, fellow Orthodox and those who celebrate on the Julian Calendar, enjoy Easter! Arabic: El Messieh kahm! Chinese: Helisituosi fuhuole! Czech: Vstal z mrtvých Kristus! Georgian: Kriste aghsdga! Greek: Christos anesti! Latin: Christus resurrexit! Romanian: Hristos a inviat! Russian: Khristos voskrese! Serbian: Hristos vaskrse! Spanish: Cristo ha resucitado! Ukrainian: Khristos voskres!
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Breton musician Thierry Jolif (who records as Lonsai Maïkov here) is a fellow Orthodox who also happens to make boomingly dark experimental drone music. It’s quite something to hear both worlds collapse into each other so violently, but if I could trust anyone to pull of such a feat, it is him. This is an EP’s worth of music, time-wise, but genres covered include ambient, drone, noise, darkwave and there are spoken word elements which tie the album together well.
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Dyerwave is a stand-alone genre sitting inside of synth-wave, which has produced a number of appealing artists who bring 1980s visual imagery and marry it to dystopian visions of the future. The artist responsible for this release, Amid The Ruins 1453 is a Serbian composer and fellow Orthodox Christian who has expressed admiration for philosopher, Christian apologist, conspiracy theorist and radio talkshow host Jay Dyer. The music is appropriately bleak, and would work well for fans of Vangelis (during the period he was composing the score for Blade Runner) and a more warped disco of Giorgio Moroder. One could also…
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To our Eastern Orthodox friends, we wish you a blessed Pascha. Christ is Risen! To celebrate the day, we have the legendary Lebanese singer Fairuz singing the paschal greeting in Greek and Arabic.