christmas music

dontcha just love it? Bob Dylan has released a Christmas album this year. All the proceeds go to charity. That’s way cool!

I’m listening to some carols on internet radio: acid jazz versions of classics and recent songs. It seems to be a genre that lends itself to anything. Some of the arrangers are so inventive, combining 4 on the floor and world beat with sampled bits from old records, orch hits and live percussion, textures fading in then out, but the melodic variations changing across the lines. Makes me smile! And wonder what the original composers might think if they could hear these versions. Mendelsohn meets Art of Noise at 50 cent’s house…hmmm.

OK, so how soon until Norah Jones does a Christmas album?

CD release!

The Angel Wind: Open Heaven CD is available for purchase! If you look under Blogroll on the right side of this page, you will see a clickable link that will take you to the PrayBig website store. There you can purchase Angel Wind: Open Heaven, The Rome Project or (for those who are really old-school) Dancing Angels. We hope to develop the store into a place where other people can offer items for sale that relate to financing a ministry through the arts.

This is the time when reality hits with the realization that products very seldom sell themselves. The fun part for me is the creation and execution of production for music and video. There always seems to be inspiration in abundance, and I don’t mind spending countless hours refining minute details that would bog down others. I don’t think I’m a perfectionist, but I do like to produce with excellence. Sometimes excellence means leaving well enough alone, because you can strangle the life out of a piece of art through overindulgence in refinement. Some things speak best when they are still prickly. And for me, contrast is a big important factor in sustaining interest. None of my friends are alike, so why shouldn’t my albums or the songs within them have different personalities? Interestingly, the homogenization of music is one of the reasons why a lot of my peers can’t stand to listen to contemporary music. That is also why record companies are shrinking, and why indie music is thriving. It has very little to do with illegal downloading and very much to do with continually discovering new music that really speaks to your life. People will pay money for something that matters to them. Which brings me to my point.

Angel Wind: Open Heaven matters very much to me as an expression of the interior sounds and sensibilities that echo inside of me. It also matters because I think it has the potential to release people into an experience with the Creator of their lives. The evolving harmonic textures are like pathways that lead to exquisite places where new revelations and old sensations can merge. God can speak through this music in pictures and places of the imagination. It’s the quiet language of the spirit. So click on over to the website and do us all a favor: buy this album!

 

almost there

We are almost ready to release the Angel Wind: Open Heaven CD. We have 250 copies waiting to find new homes. The cover came out very nice and the package fits the music. All in all, there’s a lot of value here.

There is a tremendous amount of groundwork to be done in preparing to release and service a product, hence the delay. We’re exploring how to utilize Facebook, MySpace and other online avenues to increase distribution channels. All of this means acquiring the knowledge, understanding and skills to do it well, and the commitment to maintain it! It’s not a full time undertaking, but it sure sucks up some hours in the day! Our hope is that once we get the infrastructure in place, we can more easily plug in product so that people can be blessed with easier access to what God is releasing through us and the income streams can flow.

In the meantime, thanks for hanging in there with us!

CD’s on the way

I just received an update that the shipment of CD’s are somewhere between Texas and California. This is very exciting , like awaiting the arrival of a child. Except that all the pain is over and the name is already given and we know all the fingers and toes are in place, and it doesn’t look like Uncle Smedley.

I really hope this album does well. The music is interesting: evolving patterns that evoke images of places you think you might have visited once long ago, or perhaps places you long to see. There are three songs with vocal bits that kind of lend direction to thoughts, but leave plenty of space to go wherever it means for you. And there’s multiple layers of subtle rhythms that propel the pieces forward. It makes for a pleasant journey.

Angel Wind: Open Heaven

We’re preparing to release a CD of some of the songs that have been posted to this blog. Effective today, none of the links to the songs on the blog will work. If you have enjoyed them, we hope you will purchase a CD here beginning on Friday November 13.

The CD is called “Angel Wind: Open Heaven”. It is one hour in length and is really excellent for meditation, deep relaxation, spiritual encounters and even for sleep! All 10 songs are ambient soundscapes of original music. The profits from the sales of the CD go directly to support Pray Big. You can purchase online using a credit card or PayPal account.

If you REALLY like it, perhaps you’ll consider ordering multiple copies for gifts this Christmas! While it’s not specifically holiday music, it sure creates a nice quiet ambiance for winter evenings in front of the fireplace. The music is engaging but not intrusive, perfect for setting a mood of contemplation and imagination.

We are also reissuing some of our older CD’s: “Dancing Angels” and “The Rome Project”. We hope you will enjoy all these releases; we certainly have!

 

ccm

Is anybody else tired of CCM? It seems to me that for the last number of years, all the artists coming out of the Christian Music Machine have the same sound and same vibe. OK, this is not to disparage any attempt at ministry through music or entertainment for church-goers, but where is the creativity inherent in our paternity?

I’m not addressing this rant to musicians as much as I am to the industry that sees a potential for market saturation and drives mediocrity to the finish line. I used to believe that the music business existed to serve art. Sometime toward the end of the last millennium, I first heard the expression “content provider” in reference to a songwriter and I knew then that in this age, art exists to serve business.  I know this means that there are creative artists whose work will never be heard by more than family and friends and unfortunately, they will probably never receive the honor they deserve for pursuing a singular vision and striving to express something new and/or in a new way. This is a great loss for them and for us.

It is no longer enough to have a brilliant idea with excellent execution; now you also need a brilliant marketing plan and a tube of Chapstick. Enter the Age of Accounterati….

blue rays

She has topaz eyes

She sees along blue rays…. crystal clear visions of heaven

Eternity sparkles on the surface of time

Dancing with the zephyr

blue rays © 2009 rusty richards

bollwiller

This is a village on the Rhine Valley just a few kilometers from Guebwiller. Our friends the Beck family and Huguette Brand live here. We stayed with Huguette for 2 weeks when we first arrived in France. Here is a 0:30 video clip to give a little taste of the landscape.

we’re back….

We are back in Redding after an incredibly amazing summer! My apologies for not posting for 2 months, but we had some real internet issues at the chateau. Thanks for checking in anyway! We will try to be more consistent now that we are in school and work mode once again.

A brief synopsis of the summer for now and more to follow…

We spent most of the last 3 months in a castle in Guebwiller, France, where we had a lovely apartment and a magnificent view of the Vosges mountains and terraced vineyards. We spent most days in worship (3 hours a day, 5 days a week, 9 weeks) and study. We shared several Sunday morning messages with the Josué church, held a supernatural encounter seminar there, formed a team and began training them in SOZO and inner healing, taught prophetic art, ate tons of bread and cheese and enjoyed exquisite wines. God is good!

We worked on our language skills and Janet made great progress. Enough said…

We also had several wonderful trips in the Alsace region with good friends. We went to a huge castle restored to its 12th century splendor where one could easily imagine that Lord of the Rings could have filmed there. We had a trip to a local festival to watch all kinds of hand crafted things being made. One sees that the Amish definitely came from this area: so many similarities from dress to language to food. We even had the pleasure of an evening with friends from Lancaster County when Keith and Marian Yoder visited Basel to connect with Vito and Jocelyn who walked the perimeter of Lanco last year, releasing the Amish from the vow of silence.

We enjoyed picnics throughout the summer in the mountains, by lakes and in the forests… never more than a 15 minute drive from the chateau. We saw the quaint villages with eyes of locals and we became familiar faces to the shop keepers in town.

We had several other exciting adventures away from Alsace. We were invited back to Trier to celebrate with the church that hosted us in 2007 when we did the worship altar there. The Lord has given them a key strategic property in the eastern gate of the city in the midst of government buildings. This is absolutely amazing fruit from that labor of love. I’ll explain more in a later post.

We went to the Cevennes in the south of France for the first gathering of the descendents of Huguenots, the persecuted church in France. It was an outrageous time of connecting and healing, of children returning home, of fathers calling them back. Again, there will be more on that later.

Finally, our summer wrapped up in Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives where we worshipped on the very place where the Lord Jesus will return. We were blessed to lead worship for several hours and the healing power of the Lord swept through the tent where we were gathered. One out of every five or six people were healed, set free or delivered by the power of the Holy Spirit. We felt a new commission and a higher call bestowed on us that night.

We are happy to be home and we are looking forward to the coming year as we prepare for our permanent move to Guebwiller. Thank you for all of your prayers for us…they were answered in abundance!

Stay tuned… there is more to come!

walls

The past few weeks have been very good in the worship cave. I have been tracking the themes for most days and there are certain themes that emerge consistently. One theme is that we are rebuilding the walls. I know this is also a common theme in prophetic language for this season. In the return from captivity, several walls were rebuilt: the walls surrounding the city and the Temple walls.

Today as I arrived at the church to worship, a man from the church was pulling out tall weeds and small trees to reveal a wall that runs between the church and the small river beside it.  It is significant that in his removal of the weeds, a beautiful blooming rose bush was revealed. It was for me a prophetic picture that God is clearing away the clutter so that as the building of the worship altar continues, more of his beauty can be seen.