Messianic Folklore

In this podcast, DBB and Lydia Catterall talk through the new album: We Are All Here . Find the album here , on vinyl, cd, and digital download. Here’s a link to Lydia’s Substack . And here’s her other podcast, Survival Songs , where she talks with people about the songs that go deep. There are also numerous mentions of Chris Donald who plays guitar on We Are All Here and did all the design. Liste...

Hello all, I’m here to tell you about the crowd-funder for my new album called We Are All Here . This album is really special to me. It was made in very challenging times and is the best of my writing, the best of my imagination, the best of my hope. and it carries a kind of odd clarity that I can only ever pray will happen. Sharing this album with friends has generated a lot of excitement. My fri...

They say that joy is an act of resistance. Although it's often cheaply said, I think it’s true. I think it's also an act of creative energy: a way of forming another world around its tenacious possibility. It becomes, in embryonic form, a reality held in the joy itself. It is an act of participation in what the early messianics called καινὴ κτίσις—new creation. Since the times are wearying, I’ll d...

Episode Three of the Messianic Folklore Podcast: a meditation on Everything . Please do join my crowd funder to replace my poor old computer so I can keep making these podcasts. To join my course on Paul’s letter to the Romans , sign up as a paid subscriber here on Substack , or on Patreon , where, in either case, you will find all manner of other behind-the-scenes treasures. Show Notes: —On the G...

Here is an old thing from times gone by.  In the late noughties I was gigging my way around Birmingham’s small venues and the whole thing was very dissatisfying. These little shows felt like the first stop on a pre-marked road toward the capitalist myth of musical success. This was the myth of ‘making it.’ Everywhere we played, it felt like there was an unspoken agreement between us and the audien...

Episode Three of the Messianic Folklore Podcast: a meditation on wilderness as medicine for power gone bad. This will the last podcast episode of 2023. I'll be spending December feasting and resting and gathering the embers. Thank you for listening and being part of the start of this little aural book of hours. Show Notes: —Daniel 3: the sentence of the watchers —A gentle sentence for a tyrant —Th...

Episode Two of the Messianic Folklore Podcast: a meditation on messianism as folk culture. Show Notes: —A poem —Utopian thinking vs. power —Isaiah 40 —Folk Culture: re-embedding the human story —Waiting as revolutionary patience —Finger in the wind This podcast runs on listener support. You can help by joining on Patreon , or becoming a paid subscriber on Substack , where, in either case, you will...

Well now, here's the beginning of a new thing. Here is the first episode of the Messianic Folklore Podcast. These are short immersive pieces; theological reflections and sound collages, on sacred text, embodied life and radical imagination. These’ll be monthly, to begin with at least. This is a free podcast, sustained by listener support. If you'd like to help, please consider becoming a paid subs...

Greetings Dear Readers, Earlier this year I released a record of songs and readings called The Book of Bare Life & Returns: Praying the Psalms in the Anthropocene . It comes with the essay below printed in a booklet. Since I’m rather caught up in August behaviour, I’m putting it here. It was written last summer, and there are already things I would like to qualify or say more about, but I’ll refra...