I’m back again.

More video. One of my Christmas gifts was The Pretenders: The Singles. The Pretenders are one of the most underrated bands of the past 20 years, and while they get plenty of radio play, it’s limited to just a few songs from their extensive catalog. But I already had that disc, so I went to exchange it yesterday. I had trouble finding anything that really struck my fancy. I walked over to the (very small) “Inspirtational” section, which basically held anything vaguely religious that wouldn’t fit in the New Age section. I found a bunch of stuff I’d have no interest in, such as Petra (I don’t like that style of music regardless of subject matter) and Newsboys (an ex-girlfriend of mine thought they were great any time I can avoid being like her, I jump at the opportunity) but I did unearth two things that sounded interesting: Sonic Flood’s self-titled 1999 effort and Listen by Michelle Tumes. Both were used copies, and I guess that kind of stuff doesn’t sell too well at that shop (downtown Columbia, near the University of Missouri) because they were extremely eager to do an even-up two-for-one exchange despite the marked prices. So they were happy and I was happy.
I was even happier after I gave the discs a listen.

Michelle Tumes has a haunting, atmospheric sound about her, and she has either a gorgeous voice, a great producer, or both. Allmusic.com compares her to Enya, and musically I think that’s a fair comparison, but I’d place her voice somewhere between a Jewel and a Loreena McKennitt. She’d be good to listen to late at night when you want to calm down.

Sonic Flood, on the other hand, is someone to listen to when you want to get fired up. Think contemporary power pop with a little edge to it. To draw a secular parallel, the energy and guitar tone in their version of “I Want to Know You” reminds me of Third Eye Blind’s “Never Let You Down.” I could live without the spoken word interludes, as they’re not particularly profound and the second one is completely incoherent, but the musical bits are delightful.

To get a little more practice with video sequencing, I grabbed their version of “I Want to Know You” and started assembling video, using leftover clips I didn’t use in my last project. I had a bunch of clips that just–in my mind at least–seemed to fit perfectly. I grabbed a bunch of high-energy stuff that seemed compelling for the last project, but the high-energy stuff just didn’t fit a song like “Mary Did You Know,” which is a contemplative song. On the other hand, “I Want to Know You” is a celebratory gem.

This is just a mental exercise; I don’t expect to do anything with it. Legally, the Fair Use doctrine should allow in-home experiments like this. Should I decide I want to do something with it, I’ll probably look into having someone re-record the song (I can already hear someone with local connections doing a phenomenal job with it), juggle the clips to fit the re-recording, then secure permissions to the video clips I used.

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3 thoughts on “I’m back again.

  • December 27, 2001 at 2:05 pm
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    I’ve heard that one of the great things about Sonic Flood is that they’re usually pretty easy to get permission from for stuff like that. They may change as they become more popular, but they are one of the few Christian groups who are actually in the business for the right reasons (ministry, not money).

  • December 27, 2001 at 4:27 pm
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    …and I’ll sign up for the first copy!

  • December 28, 2001 at 10:42 am
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    Allmusic.com compares her to Enya, and musically I think that’s a fair comparison.

    Hmmm…there’s times I really like Enya, so I may have to check out Michelle Tumes as well. Of course, I was an "Enya" fan back when she was just Eithne Brennan playing with her brothers, sister and uncles in the Celtic group Clannad. (BTW, her sister Maire Brennan has done some solo work with a Christian theme that’s been well received.).

    Enya also did some nice work recently for the "Lord of the Rings" soundtrack. I saw the movie yesterday and was very impressed. As a big, though not rabid, Tolkien fan I had very few quibbles with it. Well worth seeing 🙂

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