Album Review: Gloss Drop

Gloss Drop by Battles (Warp Records, 2011. 52 minutes)

Battles is an avant-garde rock band from New York City. Originally formed as an underground supergroup, each musician carried successful careers outside of the band being associated with groups such as Don Caballero, Lynx, and Helmet. The band began with Ian Williams on guitar, Dave Konopka on bass, John Stanier on drums, and Tyondai Braxton on vocals and guitar. The band released Mirrored, its first full length, in 2007 to glowing reviews. In 2010, Tyondai Braxton left Battles to work in solo projects. With a hole in the vocalist department, Battles recorded its second album, Gloss Drop, with stand-in singers. Gloss Drop peaked at 98 on the Billboard Charts.

Summer Camp

For many youths, summer means vacation. With unlimited time and idle hands, many parents judge summer camp as an excellent option to keep their children busy until school commences. These camps, with unbridled, optimistic counselors and a disconnection with the real world give children the opportunity to become a caricature of their normal selves.

The children’s talents and personality traits expand, blend, and take unique forms away from home. At summer camp, youth encounter flings, form meaningful connections with people they might never see again, and make assurances that no sane person could ever keep. The lovebirds promise marriage; the crazy kid vows to wear a mullet on the first day of school; and the artist rethinks creative influence.

Summer camp is an altered reality.

Battles: Musicians Recording for Musicians

Photo by Oliver Spall

For those unaware of the psychotic sounds of Battles, imagine a band of virtuosic musicians forming at summer camp. Not only through a unique sound, but also in presentation – drummer John Stanier performs with an 8-foot-high crash cymbal almost impossible to reach – Battles blends tight, almost house-like rhythms with tapping guitars and effects loops to create an otherworldly, circus-like sound.

Gloss Drop exists as a continuation of the basic formula first presented in Mirrored with the slight twist of a missing member. One signature portion of Mirrored was Tyondai Braxton’s signature effects-laden voice.

Without his vocals, Gloss Drop leans heavily on instrumental tracks only dipping into vocal-centric tunes four times in total.

Nevertheless, Gloss Drop remains imminently challenging. The timbres channeled through guitars, bass, drums, and keyboard are nothing short of extraordinary. Every note betrays the world-class talent behind the instruments. Clearly, Gloss Drop is a record by musicians for musicians.

Self-Aware Lyrics

Lyrically, Battles’ rotation of singers provide a dada-esque palate to compliment the sounds. The first single, “Ice Cream,” sung by Matias Aguayo, riddles in a foreign tongue,

“Dame un helado derritiéndose.”

Or with a quick Google translation, “Give me melting ice.” Of course, the lyrics provide no meaning outside of describing the sonic textures surrounding the words. Just like Mirrored’s hit single, “Atlas” proclaiming, “The singer is a crook,” “Ice Cream” offers meta lyrics that are self-aware of their existence within the song.

It’s all about the Music

More important than lyrics, however, are the sounds. For me, “Africastle” and “Futura” stick out as exemplary tunes. With heavy grooves, mind bending guitar riffs, and high energy, these songs contribute danceable rhythms and complex musicianship.

In all honesty, Gloss Drop is a difficult record; I doubt many recreational music listeners will find enjoyment in it. Truly, the album sounds like a group of musicians noodling during a summer camp. However, Gloss Drop offers a challenge for musicians. If you fancy yourself an artistic type, I believe Battles supplies enough merit to suit your fancy. With excellent musicianship and an out-of-this-world summer camp aesthetic, Gloss Drop is an excellent record.

Book Review: Work in the Spirit

Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work by Miroslav Volf (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001. 268 pp)

Born in Osijek, Croatia, Miroslav Volf performed his undergraduate studies at Evangelical-Theological Faculty, Zagreb. For his master’s work, he studied at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California and, finally, completed his doctorate at the University of Tübingen under Jürgen Moltmann. Volf teaches at Yale Divinity School as the Henry B. Wright Professor of Systematic Theology and is the director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Of his many books, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation won the 2002 Grawemeyer Award and After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity won the Christianity Today book award. Volf is a member of the Episcopal Church in the U.S.A and the Evangelical Church in Croatia.

Why Do We Hate Work?

Do you like your job? For most, the answer to that question is an unequivocal, “no”. What does it mean to work? Is it merely a means to an end – the exchange of labor for money? In Work in the Spirit, Miroslav Volf seeks to answer these questions.

In quest of a theological case for work, Volf splits his tome into two sections. In the first portion, Volf discusses current conceptions of work – mainly highlighting the difficulties of the modern employee – and continues by exploring the philosophical undertones of contemporary work through the thought of Adam Smith and Karl Marx.

In the second section, Volf posits a theological significance for work. Theologians throughout history have considered work instrumentally important since it not only provides resources that allow humans to pursue leisurely goods but also offers support for those pursuing vocational work, such as pastoral ministry and caring for the poor.

Pnematology: The Study of the Spirit

Volf, however, argues that work possess more than an instrumental purpose; it carries a pneumatological function. As such, work offers a vocational and intrinsic purpose as an end in itself. Under this rubric, the Spirit of God gifts humans in different ways and through these means, humans find specific callings in the workforce.

Sadly, work for the majority of the human population is classified as toilsome. Structurally, work tends to alienate and exploit. Under these premises, it is easy to see why so many view work as a means rather than an end – who wants to endure toil for its own sake?

The Classic Christian View of Work

Thinkers throughout Christian tradition, however, agree that work possesses useful qualities.

Volf writes,

“The early church fathers affirmed not only the nobility of work but also the obligation to work diligently and not be idle” (72).

 Under these conditions, work only maintained instrumental value; it provided opportunities to increase ascetic discipline and it presented Christians with money to sustain the household and assist those in need.

Work through the Lens of the New Creation

Suppose, however, that the eschatological future is not a world annihilated and rebuilt, but a restoration of existing creation.

Volf posits,

“If [creation’s] destiny is eschatological transformation, then, in spite of the lack of explicit exegetical support, we must ascribe to human work inherent value, independent of its relation to the proclamation of the gospel” (93).

If consummation arrives not in destruction but in restoration, the value of human work becomes critical for Christians. The faithful ought not to remain in expectant leisure awaiting God’s return; they are entrusted with the care of creation.

Work, then, is a gift of God that is inherently good; it existed before the fall when God entrusted the garden to Adam and Eve, maintained after the fall, and glorified in the transformation of new creation.

Work in the Spirit

For Volf, a pneumatological view of work is the way in which humans find purposeful work in the transformative new creation. Concerning vocation and the work of the Spirit, He writes:

“We can determine the relationship between calling and charisma in the following way: the general calling to enter the kingdom of God and to live in accordance with this kingdom that comes to a person through the preaching of the gospel becomes for the believer a call to bear the fruit of the Spirit, which should characterize all Christians, and, as they are placed in various situations, the calling to live in accordance with the kingdom branches out in the multiple gifts of the Spirit to each individual” (113).

In other words, the gifts granted by the Spirit orient Christians toward specific vocational work. Under this conception, work, while remaining under the fall, encounters meaning through the Spirit as human beings labor in cooperation with God. By reflecting on the gifts God has given, Christians find more meaning in work and in the community.

The Body Does Not Consist Entirely of Hands

On the whole, I find Volf’s theological reframing of work’s purpose to be convincing. As Paul discusses in Corinthians, the Spirit gifts Christians in specific ways allowing the communal body of Christ to function well.

As such, not every Christian is a hand. If each person tried to fulfill the work of the hand, the community would suffer. Therefore, it is ideal to place people in work scenarios that suite their specific vocational gifts.

Are We Capable of Working in the Spirit?

Nevertheless, trouble arises with Volf’s theological framing of work. Jobs, as they currently stand, are a scarce resource. With the worry of not working, many people accept a poorly-suited job for them because it is better than unemployment.

Additionally, job scarcity denies many people the opportunity to work in the fields that best apply to an individual’s specific Spirit-given gifts. For example, a talented musician, more than likely, will never become a professional musician. The demand for the position far exceeds the supply of jobs.

As such, the awarding of these jobs often result in factors outside of giving the job to the most gifted applicant – for example, politics, nepotism, and the almighty dollar are highly influential externalities in the job market.

Additionally, many people are denied jobs through lack of experience or education. Often times, employers look, first and foremost, at job experience. If an applicant who possesses perfectly-suited talent for the position but has little-to-no experience, he or she will not get the job.

Or, a brilliant person who lacked the economic resources to obtain an education will lose the job to a less-gifted-but-educated person.

While a pneumatological theology of work clearly is the ideal understanding of work, in current practice, work suffers from an imperfect application in a broken world. Ideally, people ought to search for the perfect job that fits with the Spirit-given gifts they possess. In reality, people must often settle for a job because they have the relevant experience and it is better than no job at all.

Despite this problematic question, Work in the Spirit critically discusses the value of work. While many think of it as a means to a leisurely end, Volf argues that a pneumatological understanding of work allows humanity to be liberated to choose jobs that fit specific gifts. I recommend this book.