the austerity program

Best of 2019

This past year for me was spent quietly tending to personal projects and family concerns. Most of the reviews I wrote were in the first half; the second half I mostly concerned myself with releasing another Domestikwom album, starting a movie podcast with Chris, and a YouTube channel with occasional Nine Circles contributor and Qoheleth noise man Jeremy Hunt.

When I finally lifted my head above ground, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had actually done a good enough job of keeping up with the year’s new releases that I could put together a list I could stand behind. Continue reading →

austerity program - bible songs 1

For anyone who has ever tried to dramatize Bible stories, especially for movies, the first and often most important challenge is how to fill in gaps from the text so it makes sense to modern audiences. Usually these are narrative gaps, but certainly as ancient bits of myth making, the psychologies of its characters are rarely, if ever explored. This practice of using, as Wil Gafney calls it, “sanctified imagination” goes back more than a thousand years to the rabbinic tradition of midrash. But what happens when the stories we explore are violent, unstable and predatory? Well, you get Bible Songs 1 from The Austerity Program. Continue reading →