William Chong

Sons of Korah: RAIN

An enthralling musical journey through some of the Bible’s most enduring psalms. A

3000-year-old Psalms. Contemporary music. It’s a surprising mix for those unfamiliar with the rich and hauntingly evocative sounds of Sons of Korah. Their latest album, RAIN, is another well-crafted addition to a discology that has enriched and inspired listeners around the world.

Currently led by Matthew Jacoby and Rod Gear, the Australia-based outfit has been carving out their music since 1993. RAIN delves into psalms that span a wide range of human emotion, employing a musical clarity that leaves one more appreciative of the sacred texts their tracks are based on.

From the soft acoustic guitars and mandolins in He Sits Enthroned (Ps 99) to strong and taiko-like drums in Overwhelmed (Ps 14b), Sons of Korah confidently draw from many contemporary musical styles. There’s the soft Wurlitzer-chords lamenting and thirsting for God in Streams of Water (Ps 42a) under a mournful A minor drone; when Jacoby sings lyrics like “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul thirsts for the living God”, it paints a grittier, and refreshingly realistic take on the psalm.

And when he sings in The Pilgrim Song that “better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere” (Ps 81), it’s equally honest and sincere. Through it all, theologically-trained Jacoby is astute in picking out the right chorus sections, verses and harmonies – who would have thought that Psalm 139 could be turned into a CCM-like praise song in Still with You?

Other highlights heart-wrenching rebuke of “The Fool” (Ps 14a), and a few numbers that suggest what a psalm would sound like as sincere piano ballads in the vein of Elton John’s Your Song. There are strong musical hooks throughout the album that encourage you to literally sing through your Bible reading, and it’s got fantastic production values that set it apart from the plethora of Christian up-and-coming demo EPs.

These guys are experienced, and continue to excel in marrying timely music with timeless lyrics. Kiwis looking to catch Sons of Korah’s music can also celebrate: they’re committing to a New Zealand tour in March 2009.

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Sons of Korah website: http://www.sonsofkorah.com
Buy their CD: CRS Online NZ; CRS Online (International customers)
Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/sonsofkorahmusic
Artist contact: matt at sonsofkorah dot com

Disclosures: None to declare.

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Comedic classical duo Igudesman and Joo have a novel method of tackling the massively-spaced chords in Rachmaninoff’s infamous Prelude in C-sharp minor (op.3, no.2).

It’s actually physically impossible for most pianists to play some of those chords in there: a quick look at the sheet music will blow you away…

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Had a fantastic time orienteering at Eastern Beach, Macleans. All I’ve got to show for it this morning at work is a sore right foot, but I’m still buzzing from it. There’s just something about looking at a map, seeing a point on the other side of a river in the middle of the forest, knowing you have to get there as fast as you can, then just throwing all caution to the wind and trailblazing your way through trees and thistles and ouch-ouch-ouch-ouch-ouch -

Hurtling through the jungle bush was at times Tropic Thunder, at times Blair Witch Project – paths and walkways are so last season. The most nailbiting moment for me would have been stopping at an uncomfortably high ledge with a creek running through below, and seeing the control point I needed to reach at the other side of the 2 to 3 metre-wide abyss.

It seemed insurmountable; I hesitated.

Risk of injury. I’ve come this far.
Looks like a gorge. Need to be somewhere in 10 minutes.

I suddenly found myself lunging (a la school athletics) over the creek, tumbling into the mud on the opposite side, and scrambling up the hill in triumphant exertion. I think courage whispered in my ear that beautiful summer’s day.

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I actually came 3rd on Course 3! Which was funny because in my opinion, Course 3 would have been just as difficult (if not more so) than Course 2.

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Let’s keep our new government accountable.

Ethan Waters: A Demo By EP

100% acoustic songs and the continuation of a nostalgic search-for-love narrative. A-. (Update 20/11: The fact that it’s still a repeated feature on my music playlist means I must give credit where credit is due!)

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John Lennon once said that “everything is clearer when you’re in love”, and Ethan Waters heartily affirms this in his latest EP, A Demo By.

The Auckland University graduate film student – also known as Dennis Liu in the daylight hours – made a last-minute change to an album that initially promised a graduation into the daring pop music world. A Demo By now offers five brand-new tracks: a reprise of his tried-and-true acoustic sound that’s at times familiar, but earnest and genuine all the same.

As the natural sequel of his debut EP, Crushes and Waves, this EP picks up right from where the last one ended (even carrying over some of his previous melodies). At first you wonder how much more about life and love Waters can expand on – but Waters reassures us right from The Reminder that he’s got more to sing about.

Waters presents the kind of love songs that you’d play to your significant other on a guitar, accompanied by the picnic basket and blanket overlooking scenic innocence. He’s on the verge of asking her out in Vacancy, sincerely asking “if there’s a vacancy in your heart”. And there’s Tailoring Me, a secular psalm that’s an odd juxtaposition between platonic and romantic love, the lyrics swathed with wistfulness akin to John Mayer’s Daughters.

Waters is a touch more forthcoming with his influences in this EP: All Your Different Names is tender, earnest and half Glen Hansard elegy, half David Tao ballad (without the vagaries of Mandarin lyrics). His choruses are as always full of gentle hooks, whether it’s declaring that “I’m not ready for you to relax…”, or serenading to “Constance, you’re just Constance”. There’s even the pleasant surprise of some beautiful violin-playing that introduces listeners to his classically-trained side.

Admittedly, A Demo By still has a reliance on lyric-writing that’s closer to scattered short-story prose. The words can at times drift perilously those to Evermore-style existentialism (e.g. “Floating in a ‘blind me’ kind of way | across the universal skies”). And the closing track Maybe You’ll Sing gives a less conclusive ending than in his previous EPs. Yet there’s no doubting that this is an album that’s been diligently crafted: it’s wonderfully and fearfully made in a way that captures the nostalgia of dreamy college years.

If you were anticipating from Waters a metamorphosis into a pop star, then stifle your disappointment and take some bated breaths. Waters has promised fans digital single releases for the future – in his own words, “you’re a reminder that I should never stop writing.”

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Contact the artist: waters dot ethan (at) gmail dot com
For music videos and more visit: www.ethanwaters.com; www.myspace.com/ethanwaters

Disclosure: Dennis Liu is a close friend; there are no financial relationships to declare.
Contact the author: lemmingz@gmail.com

Looking at two recent studies, the defining dilemma for the old pacemaker-wearing folk that love their iPods would probably be this: “which is more dangerous to me, death metal or draping my headphones across my chest?”

“Headphones interfere with heart devices” was one of the major headlines-grabbing presentations at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2008. In the news release, researchers shared their findings from investigating the effects of mp3 player headphones – most of them contain the magnetic substance neodymium – on the operation of implanted cardiac devices (e.g. pacemakers) and defibrillators.

The researchers found a detectable interference with the device by the headphones in 14 patients, (23 percent). Specifically, they observed that 15 percent of the pacemaker patients and 30 percent of the defibrillator patients had a magnet response, Maisel said.

For patients with pacemakers, exposure to the headphones can force the device to deliver signals to the heart, causing it to beat without regard to the patients’ underlying heart rhythm, he said. Exposure of a defibrillator to the headphones can temporarily deactivate the defibrillator. In most cases, removal of the headphones restores normal device function.

Patients should not focus on the brands we tested but instead should simply be instructed to keep their headphones at least 3 cm from their implantable devices.

Another study presented at the same conference (reported in stuff.co.nz) gave some interesting findings related to cardiovascular function. The authors found that listening to music you like may improve blood flow. 10 healthy non-smoking men and women had ultrasound tests to examine blood vessel function while listening either to music that made them feel happy, or music that made them anxious.

Compared to normal baseline measurements, blood vessel diameter increased 26 percent on average when the volunteers heard their joyful music. Interestingly (though hardly statistically significant), most of the volunteers chose country music as joyful(!). Listening to music they disliked narrowed blood vessels by 6 percent (most of them chose heavy metal).

I guess now we can add good music (together with statins, ACE inhibitors, dark chocolate, laughter and other undiscovered finer-things) to the list of effective vasodilators. And smooth blood flow leads to less of the blood clots that cause heart attacks and strokes. Who knew listening to the Dixie Chicks could be�good for your heart?

In penning their verses, the majority of songwriters and poets normally stay well away from words that have no obvious rhyme: orange, silver, and purple are prime examples. Also try rhyming the word “month”.

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I’ll let you keep thinking on those for a bit.

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While there are many perfectly acceptable ways to hold a verse or two together without the use of rhyme, it’s always been a tantalising challenge to try and do the seemingly impossible in wordplay. In his book “Words at Play“, MENSA International Journal puzzle columnist O.V. Michaelsen provides a few creative ways to rhyme some of these words:

• MONTH – rhymes perfectly with an obscure English word “grunth“. It’s an alternate spelling of the word “Granth“, the name of the sacred scriptures of the Sikh religion.
• ORANGE – “Blorenge” is the name of a 1,833-foot hill in Abergavenny, Wales.
• PURPLE – “Hirple” is a British word meaning “to limp”, while the word “curple” refers to the hindquarters and buttocks of a horse
• SILVER – “Chilver” is an old English word referring to either an ewe lamb or mutton

Of course, there are more challenging words like the above: try and think of a rhyme to go with the words ninth, pint, wolf, opus, marathon, dangerous, and discombobulate.

In the world of songwriting there’s a couple of brave folk who do give these words a decent go. The one that I can think of straight away is in the chorus of MIKA’s “Grace Kelly”, where the Lebanese-American singer exhorts:

“I can be brown, I can be blue
I can be violet sky
I can be hurtful, I can be purple
I can be anything you like
Gotta be green, gotta be mean
gotta be everything more
Why don’t you like me, why don’t you like me,
Why don’t you walk out the door?”

Granted, the rhyme works partly because he sings “hurtful” and “purple” in a high falsetto. And there’s also the fact that MIKA pronounces “hurtful” more like “hurh’ fle”… but it’s still a good effort.

Anyone know of any other songs where artists have given some of these “unrhymables” a good go?

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Now that the halfmarathon’s over, there’s a temptation to just slouch back and relax as summer 08/09 rolls in.

But that wouldn’t be very fun, would it?

The 21st Auckland Orienteering Summer Series has started up again for the 2008/09 season. For those who don’t remember orienteering as one of their childhood camp activities, orienteering is a sport where you find your way across unfamiliar terrain with the help of a map and your sense of direction. The aim is to find all the control points on the course in the shortest time possible – and track back and forth across any one of the beautiful parks, forests, suburbs of Godzone in the process!

Last year I gave a couple of events a good go, and loved it. I think it’s being amongst the sights and sounds of Auckland parks in a totally refreshing way that’s most rewarding. Add to the fact that you actually get to see more of places like Cornwall Park, Eastern Beach and the Domain than you usually would if it was just a leisurely weekend picnic at the BBQ areas.

I think I’ll try my best to make this Wednesday’s event at Western Springs (will be my first time there!) – after being sick for the most of last week I’m raring to get running again!

Take care everyone, and if you’ve had exams I hope they all went well!

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I’ve been sick the last couple of days, so the most productive thing I did this week was to vote. So don’t waste your democratic right!

On Sunday I ran my first half-marathon ever. It’s up there in terms of my life’s highlights (including climbing Mt Kinabalu, standing at the top of Cape Reinga watching two seas collide) – and I think I might have caught the running bug.

I clocked in at 2:23:47 (net time) – which pretty much shattered any false hopes of beating Kerre Woodham! But I did raise $590 for the NZ Heart Foundation, thanks to the help of old-fashioned appeals, emails and generosity despite these troubled times. It’s nice to see altruism in action, especially for a good cause.

Reflecting on how I ran my first halfmarathon, I made the grave mistake of a last-minute change to my game plan: to maintain an under 6-minute/km pace. To do this my plan was to stick with the 2:00 hour pacesetter, but 5 minutes before the horn went off, he was nowhere to be seen, and my naive self thought that following the 1:50 lady would probably be alright. It was an unsustainable pace and I was punished for it, eventually coming towards the bottom half of the men’s field.

Hey – at least it gives me the motivation to go one better next year…

Runners and revellers

Waking up at 4am in the morning is pretty hard – I tried to make it easier to get out of bed by hiding my alarm underneath a bunch of books in my bookcase across the room. The pre-race breakfast consisted of wholegrain bread with Nutella spread.

Brendan’s dad picked me up at 5am to head to the Auckland ferry building. With adidas bags in hand, we joined a queue (for one of the numerous ferries to the start line at Devonport) that stretched from the ferry building out to the Viaduct Harbour’s entertainment precinct. It was definitely a strange juxtaposition of eager fitness freaks with the remnants of Saturday night’s clubbers, fresh from their booze-filled morning and probably wondering what on earth the people with the smurf-coloured bags were lining up for.

(N.B.: Some photos courtesy of Marathon-photos.com)

We reached the Devonport Ferry Terminal at about 5:45, having had a launch delay because a big celebrity cruise liner took its time parking up at the Viaduct and blocking the way.

After last-minute toilet stops and dropping off our gear bags into the gear trucks, we proceeded to the start line. As I mentioned earlier, this was where I made the fatal error of making the last-minute deviation from my training pace.

The first few minutes was thrilling. Full of adrenaline, with rock music pumping in my ears (c.f. Song 2 by Blur), the first 5 kilometers were great. My enthusiasm saw me enjoy running up Vauxhall Rd and around Narrow Neck Beach, and my aim was to keep a consistent pace through the entire race. However, it dawned on me that the 1:50 was too fast for me as the lady with the helium balloon broke away – I saw my dreams of a sub-2 hr, sub-anything finish bob further and further away…

I reached the first drink station (just before Takapuna Grammar School) fairly well-hydrated. Despite the potential for derision, I stuck to carrying my water with me – this proved to be a good move as the mad scrums and dashes for the water cups created a fair amount of chaos as I went past. It’s also pretty hard to drink from a cup when you’re bouncing along the pavement, and the cadence of my feet would spill more water than I’d actually drink.

The next couple of kilometers went pretty well – I spotted a few memorable folks, including:

• Rob Matthews and his guide powering past me up a hill (he’s a record-holding runner who’s born with a degenerative eye condition)
• Two guys dressed in togas who eventually completed the full marathon
• A small group of supporters interspersed along the course, waving “Smile if you’re still loving this: yeeya!” signs

Crossing the 10 km mark and entering the suburb of Northcote, I was then greeted with a good section of hilly course. My strategy was to resist the temptation of bounding downhill and powerwalking uphill, but rather to keep a consistent pace. Fortunately, the hill training I had done (thanks Bucklands Beach Rd, Bleakhouse Rd and Takutai Ave!) meant that I kept to my consistent pace no matter the incline.

Towards the bridge

I was nevertheless glad to see the end of hilly Northcote terrain, as the course drooped down Stafford Rd and towards the Auckland Motorway onramp. One of the highlights of the Auckland Marathon soon came into view: the opportunity to run across the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Runner’s high at the top of the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

It was a reasonably challenging “hill” – but the bridge was still runnable, and with awe-inspiring views to boot. Watching the lemmings-like trail of runners stretch around the corner and towards the Westhaven Marina.

The pain barrier

My physiology went into uncharted territory once I began the last 5 km of the halfmarathon. My feet began throbbing with pain with each step I took. My leg muscles weren’t particularly sore, but strangely enough there was a soreness across my abdominals that was completely new (and unsettling) to me. Thanks to my constant rehydration, I suffered no cramps. But it still hurt.Crossing the finish line became the primary goal. Pressing on, pressing on.

I passed a couple more memorable characters like Darth Vader and Obi Wan Kenobi, as well as the infamous Borat. The last 2 kms took forever, and the field turned progressively pinker as the men’s field (wearing black or blue shirts) had mostly forged ahead by then. It didn’t matter: I filled my head with comments and phrases from friends and supporters (“keep your knees up”; “give us value for money”; “see you at the 2010 Olympics”), recalled that I had also been running for a greater cause, and grinned my way towards the home straight.

Running through the finishing chute was amazing as the feeling of finishing my inaugural long-distance event gradually sank in.

Of course, Brendan made it with a much quicker time: coming in at 136th place with a time of 1:32:47 and winning the lucky prize draw of a sponsored, all-expenses-paid trip to the 2009 London Marathon (yeah, it’s true).

Before we left, we stuck around at the finishing line to watch some of the full marathon finishers. The small but reasonably vocal crowd encouraged the racers home, and there were a few more unique runners like:

• Harry Escott, who completed the full marathon in 3 hrs 57 minutes… by skipping it
• A racer dressed in a full Stormtrooper costume who made a pretty good sub-4 1/2-hour time
• The 10-year-old boy that came through under four hours running the full marathon
• Countless septa and octagenarians who were truly inspiring to watch cross the finish line

There’s no question about it – I’ll be back next year.

Other reflections

A collection of post-marathon/halfmarathon reflections out on the blogosphere:

• Damian did the halfmarathon
• Andrew raced for the NZ Heart Foundation too
• James and Jody both did the halfmarathon
• Ken completes the full marathon

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Philippians 4:13 – “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.”