Sea Change (CD)

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CD

A "sea change" is the transformation from the current way of seeing which can follow from a deep encounter of the soul, to see change and make change.

In a historical context:

Sea Change originally referred to something that changed because of the sea. Later sea change was used to describe a rich and strange alteration.

Song titles on the album include; Sea Change, Morning, Come Down to the Park, Time, I've got These Hands, First Crush, Loving for Life, Freedom Trees, Down Where the Willows Weep, Healing of the Heart, and Rise Up.

REVIEW by Sojourners Magazine

Culture Watch
Conversions

by C. McNair Wilson

Calling Ken Medema a singer-composer is like calling the Yankees a ball club. For his latest CD, Sea Change, Ken is also orchestrator, back-up vocalist (and choir), and percussionist. If they'd show him how to operate the shrink-wrapping machine, he'd do that too.

Medema's vast talent may also be the reason he is not the most famous musician in the land. After five listenings, I am at a loss to categorize this CD. His influences run from Bach to Broadway, with stops in hip-hop, rock, and full gospel.

Medema's mature bass hasn't sounded better in 25 years. The CD begins with "Sea Change," a soulful folk call to worship that is sung a cappella, and then moves to "Morning," a hymn that might be sung from the rooftop of a San Francisco Victorian in praise of the colors and sounds of Medema's hometown. Then our contemplation is "shattered by the raucous call from a child to Come Down to the Park." Here Medema is social commentator on our over-scheduled lives and over-busy children: "Kill the phone, leave it home."

Like a rich oboe, Medema cries for a suffering, needy world. A simple answer, our answer, is in front of us: "I've Got These Hands." We experience Citizen Medema employing his gifts and heart for suffering and injustice. In "Freedom Trees," he calls us to "wake up and touch the trouble, wake up and smell the danger" because "they're chopping down the freedom trees" - the voices and freedoms that are essential to democracy. Few artists in gospel show biz tackle cruelty and injustice head-on.

No Medema collection would be complete without a sanctuary-shakin' full-gospel sermon-in-song. Turn to John 5, where a man is unable to walk for 38 years; Jesus comes to him (and us in the midst of our complaining) and says, "Rise up!"

Sea Change is a playful and powerful call to faith as a verb. Shakespeare coined "sea change" in The Tempest. He meant ordinary, reliable, and constant change, as with the tides. Medema would have us seechange as constant, applying God's heart to the world's hurt.

C. McNair Wilson is a former Disney theme park designer and author/illustrator of Raised in Captivity: A Memoir of a Life Long Churchaholic. He blogs about creativity at www.TeaWithMcNair.typepad.com.

Titles include:

Come Down to the Park 
Down Where the Willows Weep 
First Crush 
Freedom Trees 
Healing of the Heart 
Ive Got These Hands 
Loving For Life 
Morning 
Rise Up 
Sea Change 
Time 
So is the Love of God