Musings

psalters

Two years ago at a music festival my mom, my sisters and I were hot and sunburned and we took refuge in a tent serving as one of the performance spaces. Inside we encountered a nomadic tribe of musicians playing songs from their souls voiced through drums and percussive instruments of all kinds, guitars, banjo, mandolin, oboe, and others I don't know what they are. The music is different and not what we expected but beautiful, truthful, and instinctual.

They go by the name psalters. They sing and play praises, laments, and pleas from the book of Psalms and that they've penned. I appreciate their musicianship and the love they sing and display.
One of my little sisters has some special needs because of her early life experiences. She has a beautiful heart that shines in her unique way of seeing things and also she doesn't always perceive or process sensory information the way many people do. She consequently has a hard time experiencing music and understanding words. When we first saw the psalters perform she and I danced and sang and she was able to feel not only the rhythms of the music but also the melodies and vocalizations. I'm not sure why this is. Some of the music the psalters say they are influenced by might explain it: music of diaspora; bedouins, tuaregs, and romani peoples etc. old spirituals, orthodox chants; klezmer, appalachian, Iraqi traditional maqam, west african ballet, timbalada, music from the silk road.

This year when we went back Becca was very excited to see the Psalters. We'd been listening to one of their CD's, The Divine Liturgy of the Wretched Exiles all year and were looking forward to seeing them again. The live show includes fire dancing and afterwords a drum and percussion type circle that the audience joins in on. But after the main set several of the psalters even though they were packing and working took the time to talk with my sister and show her instruments and the fire stuff. It made her year. And mine.

Below I have shared just a bit of their lyrics. If any of this has at all piqued your interest I really encourage you to check out their website or myspace The description nomadic is literal. They have an old black bus that runs on vegatable oil and travel all over the US and even the world, Iraq, Turkey, Eastern and (are currently traveling through norway, germany, sweden, belgium, the netherlands and UK) Europe and more places I don't even know about. This winter they spent time with refugees and villagers in Turkey. The blog on that trip (scroll down) is a moving personal reflection on a remarkable journey. For all you photo buffs there are some photos in the blog that are in a larger size than usual and are really cool. In my opinion even if you don't dig the music that blogpost is worth the trip down the link to read. It really gives a glimpse into the heart of the psalters and a fascinating look at Turkey and its people.


Refugee Our Home
Revolution come free us,
Holy Brother us desert wanderers have no place to call home
Physician come heal us
Holy Mender us blind ol lepers can not find our way home
Refugee just like me
please don't leave You're our only....
Compassion come save us
Holy Lover us warmongers ruined this place we call home
Refugee just like me
please don't leave You're our only...
Home, Home.

their discography and lyrics are on their website in albums on the market page. If you want to listen to any of the music it will really help to check out the lyrics to read along. I reccomend a listen to all the songs but I really love Wayfaring Stranger (its on the myspace page) as its a live recording and really gives a feel of the psalters.

If you live in any of the places they're gonna be I really encourage you to check em out.

~muse~