Joy EP

Blacknall Arts is a new songwriting and recording initiative that I’ve started out of my church, Blacknall Presbyterian. Joy is our first EP and marks: 1) our first foray, as a church community, into the recording arts and the production of a record; 2) a curation of a few of our favorite handcrafted arrangements of carols from previous years; and 3) a meditation on the journey through Advent, from darkness to light, preparation to arrival.

The album is bookended (tracks 1 and 5) by the song “Joy to the World,” as the hymn, in its fullness, marks both the beginning and end of Advent. The great hymn writer Isaac Watts penned his most famous hymn text as a meditation on Psalm 98, particularly 98:4: "Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises!” But this meditation on Psalm 98 didn’t look primarily towards Christ’s first coming, but his second coming instead.

It's in this expectant posture—one of hope in the midst of a broken world—that we approached the first track of the record. We imagined a bittersweetness to the hymn, a rehearsing of a future joy that is incarnated in the midst of the “birth pangs” of creation on this side of the second coming. So our opening track carries a longing for that future day, yet also confidence in our hope for, well, its advent, its coming in the fullness of time.

The rest of the record flows from this posture. "Hark! A Thrilling Voice is Sounding" echoes the cry of John the Baptist and all the prophets before him: "The time is coming! The messiah is near! Cast away your works of darkness, all ye children of the light." "Long Ago Prophets Knew" moves at lightning speed across the arc of salvation, from the prophets to Mary's laboring. And then we arrive in Bethlehem with the song of the angels, proclaiming that God is pleased to dwell with us in flesh, becoming one of us, forever, so that there might be peace on earth and good will towards all. And we end the record where we began, but with a rocking take on Joy to the World, one not afraid to celebrate the beginning of Jesus' second coming within the culmination of His first.

released November 23, 2022

CREDITS
Co-Produced by Wen Reagan and Sam Gould
Sound engineering by Wen Reagan and Sam Gould
Acoustics engineering by Rick Copland, Roger Eibest, and Mike Eyster
Mixed by Wen Reagan at Blacknall Studio in Durham, NC
Album Art by Blake Johnson

Blacknall Arts 2022 is...
Vocals: Taylor Brennan, Kat Burgett, Allie Hargrove, James Junker, Dana McCarty, Casey Reagan, Wen Reagan, Hannah Taylor, Jamie Turnage
Guitars: Wen Reagan
Pedal Steel: Mike Grigoni
Banjo: Wen Reagan
Bass guitar: Matt Laird, John Nicholson, Wen Reagan
Viola: Timothy Crouch
Violin: Scott Laird
Cello: Caleb Wagner
Piano: Timothy Crouch, Sam Gould, Ava Kinghorn
Keys/Synth/B3: Sam Gould, Wen Reagan
Drums/Percussion: Sam Gould