Braille | Spirit Songs
Artist: Loudbrook
Label: indie
Time: 10 tracks / 73:33
 

On the outskirts of even the most remote boundaries of popular music (and ‘Christian’ music in particular) lay fertile fields of creativity and artistic exploration. We love categories, but in the realm of imagination and invention you often have to overlap and combine things in order to create something new. Melissa and Bryan Lautenbach, the husband and wife duo who have adopted the musical identity of Loudbrook (actually the translation of their last name) have done just that, combining elements of jazz, classical, rock, ambient and electronica to create a new sound on the Christian music landscape. 

Braille | Spirit Songs is made up of ten compositions, indicated on the track-list as ‘a’ through ‘j,’ (accompanied by the Braille configuration of the letter) and further described by more evocative titles like “Waking The Beautiful” and “Don’t Know Why I’m Dancing.”  The music on Braille | Spirit Songs is a combination of careful composition, free-form expression and improvisation, always in deference to ‘God speaking’ to the musicians in a kind of spiritual dialog. The resulting music is atmospheric and textural, often creating an impression as much as a directional melody – from time to time Phillip Glass comes to mind for a sonic comparison, as well as new-age jazz group, Winter Consort.

The songs are birthed by Bryan, who composes in a spontaneous style and performs on piano and various keyboards, with Melissa, whose ideas are also spontaneously improvised (on flute and vocals), and sometimes captured in one ‘inspired’ take. The songs are all instrumentals, often inspired by scriptural themes, but very free-form in nature. The excellent supporting musicians, Matthew Odmark and Scott Dente on acoustic guitars, Stephen Mason on electric guitar, John Scudder and Matt Pierson on bass, David Henry on cello, Andy Hubbard on drums and Bart Elliott on percussion, all perform within the bounds of the basic compositional framework but with encouragement to find the proper Spirit-guided groove. In some cases, the cellist, or guitar player, would read note-for-note from the Loutenbach’s supplied score, or long-distance sessions would take place with input back-and-forth between the players and the composers. The end result sounds fresh, spontaneous and flowing – music for contemplation and exploration.
 

It’s almost an exercise in futility to try to accurately describe the music on Braille | Spirit Songs except to say that they’re songs that are not meant so much to be described as to be experienced. Lautenbach has attempted to transpose Spiritual impressions into a musical format. On Braille | Spirit Songs, inspired minimalist composition combines with gifted musicians given the freedom to become a living part of an open-ended recording, and it works. 

 This isn’t for the pop, country or rock crowd. No guitar solos or three-minute songs with catchy choruses. Think of this music as an interface between the soul and the Spirit, in the same way that Braille becomes an interface to the Braille ‘reader’ between sensation and thought. Clearly, this isn’t music that will appeal to the taste of a wide audience, but if you’re musically adventurous and have an open mind and Spirit, Braille | Spirit Songs might be exactly what you’ve been waiting for to expand your musical horizons.
 

Bert Saraco
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