Have you heard of Red Mountain Music? They’re based in the States and put old hymns, often not very well known ones to new music… Here’s what they say:

The title for our cd, “Depth of Mercy” comes from one of our favorite songs. Our hope is that Christ continues to pour out His mercy over us every day of our lives. Our hope is that these songs will allow Christians to worship and experience God’s love as the truth of His gospel is continually and articulately proclaimed. We hope you love this music as much as we do.

So anyway… I bought a download version of this album, 13 tracks for $9.99… which works out about £6, and the downloads are good quality MP3s… so well worth it… there’s another 5 albums so I might get another one soon!

My two favourite hymns on here are There is a Fountain Filled with Blood (William Cowper) and Depth of Mercy (Charles Wesley)… the latter was used on the UCCF video, In view of God’s Mercy.

Good news! The new Spotify application for the iPhone has been approved by Apple and will be arriving in the App store very soon. As far as I know the App is FREE, BUT in order to use it you need to be a premium member – £9.99 per month subscription… if you like music a lot, then I think that’s £10 well spent! The best thing, as you’ll see in the demo video below, is that you don’t just get to stream music, but actually download it to your iPhone, which means you can listen anytime, anywhere!

I’ve just borrowed a little book of Mrs. Payne called Valley of Vision. It’s a collection of Puritan prayers – it’s mustard. Like a little devotion book – I’ve been using it this week to help me pray, in particularly in preparation to preach. The picture is my local valley, up at Devil’s Dyke – ironic to be preparing to preach and praying on a hill named after the enemy.

I’ve been meaning to get hold of the Sovereign Grace CD of this, some of the prayers put to music – Valley of Vision CD. You can get the book here.

Lord, High and Holy, Meek and Lowly,
Thou has brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.

Let me learn by paradox
that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

These guys are pretty awesome from all accounts… good news then that they’re coming to sing at church on Saturday! They’re going to be performing at Bishop Hannington Church at 7pm on Saturday 18th October. So if you’re local, living anywhere near Brighton & Hove, then definitely come along!!

Tickets are only £1 for adults, and £0.50 for children…. ring the office (01273 732965) for tickets, or come along on the night, there should be space.

On camp this year I bought a copy of ‘Looked Upon’ an album by the Na Band from Sovereign Grace. I bought it for several reasons; firstly it has a cool cover, looks like an old mid-western farmer, could do with a piece of straw coming out of his mouth. Second, ‘the Gobbmeister’ – Sovereign Grace’s unofficial UK music promoter – was selling them at bargain prices. And thirdly… Sovereign Grace are known for making good music!

You can listen to the song previews here. I love both the music and words of these songs – particularly the new versions of Man of Sorrows (What a Saviour) and When I Survey. Another favourite is ‘My Lord I did not choose you’, it’s basically Calvinism put to a song, I paraphrase some of the lyrics:

“You have saved me, you took my sins away, you called me… I was dead but you chose to save my life!”

Sometimes Calvinism, orthodox beliefs lead to pride – proud that God chose me, proud that I’m not like those foolish Arminians! But these truths are spoken gently and humbly, and they can only lead to humility because it’s all about what God has done! The subtitle for the album is “Humble orthodoxy set to music” – that is a great description, Biblical truths, but as with much of what Sovereign Grace does is laced with humility.

Incidentally, I also bought ‘Upward: The Bob Kauflin Hymns Project’… I didn’t like this one, maybe it will grow on me… I just didn’t think the new tunes to old hymns were effective.

Last night our CU meeting was a bit different. Since everyone is stressed out with exams (not me of course… hmm) we thought we’d chillax. An acoustic night… we were pleased to welcome a Christian Indie band from Sydney, called Richard Beeston band. They are mates of Ross from BH, so he gave short talk from Ecclesiasties 3 (and a bit of Mark 8).

As well as their own stuff, they covered Coldplay – Clocks, and a different, but very good version of ‘No Woman, No Cry’. Their own stuff is great too – firstly they’ve proved that you can write Christian songs and still musically be good. The songs are about God, sometimes explicity, sometimes less so. I’ve been listening to their album for a couple of weeks and my favourite was track 3 – ‘I give in to you’. It was great to hear it live and to hear the story behind it… all about a young man who came to Christ, but his family didn’t like it and put aside £1.3 million (around 20 years ago – that’s a lot!) and offered it to him to reject his faith – he chose Christ saying that that money didn’t come close to eternity in heaven with Him.

Listen to their music and buy it – it’s great! You can get it on ITunes…

Richard Beeston and on Myspace