PAGE CXVI – HYMNS [FREE MUSIC!!!]

When you hear the word “HYMN“, what comes to mind?

For some, it’s not a definition, but a specific song.  A song that in one instance gives AND facilitates praise to and honor of an amazing, gracious, and indescribable God.  Sadly, for others, the words dirge, tired, old, or irrelevant come to mind – not a reflection of God, but of the older format of songs falsely labeled such because they were written in a difference century (even though hymnody is just as active today as it was in centuries gone by.)  The later view is generally unfamiliar with these types of songs and usually avoids them; while the former feel this genre is sorrowfully neglected.

Churches frequently wage battle on this soil – as they probably did when “new” songs were introduced in the 1800s…

A little over a year ago, I quite fortuitously stumbled upon a “project” called Page CXVI* while surfing for music…and have enjoyed their “HYMNS” album immensely ever since.  Each of the hymns on their debut album are from the 17th and 18th centuries, except their version of the Getty’s In Christ Alone and Tomlin’s The Wonderful Cross (which actually was an update of Watts’ When I Survey.)

With their stated goal of “making hymns accessible and known again”, Page CXVI entered an ever increasing number of “hymn album” releases with excellence and in a style that both honors the original hymn (for purists) and breathes new musical life into tenured and new hymns (for the unfamiliar) – both characteristics of which are critical in my opinion.

On May 5th, Page CXVI will be releasing their second hymn album, appropriately titled “HYMNS II.”  In anticipation of the release, for the next eight days (April 27 – May 4 [midnight]), Page CXVI is offering a free download of their first album, HYMNS at this link: www.pagecxvi.com/share.

In addition to downloading their first album free, the new HYMNS II album is available for a pre-order or instant digital download, as well at their main website.

I don’t generally plug a lot of albums and artists on here, but if you are looking for a fresh take on, as PAGE CXVI describes them, “some of the richest, most meaningful, and moving pieces of music ever written”, download their first album.  Hey, the price is right (again, free!) and I expect you’ll be back for HYMNS II on May 5th!

x

*From PAGE CXVI’s website: [PAGE CXVI] “comes from a reference to page 116 in our copy of The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis. It is a poignant passage where Aslan begins to sing Narnia into creation out of a black void.

It starts, “In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction is was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it.”  ~ C.S. Lewis”