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Dear Reader,

It gives us great pleasure to announce to you that: These are Songs of Praise & Scorn, and although they have always been amongst us, they are being offered to you now for your fair consideration. Christopher Paul Stelling, author of said Songs is both glad and pleased to see their release. Our authors’ life and journey, in so much as these Songs are concerned, is somewhat irrelevant, so I won’t go on to trouble your good sensibilities, dear Reader, with mere hyperbole and assumed facts.

I will also spare you the usual approbation concerning my appraisal of Mr. Stelling’s aptitude as composer/lyricist/singer/guitarist, as I am sure that the evaluation of such matters, you yourself will take great pleasure in surveying. That being said, I would like to ensure you that Mr. Stelling wishes you and yours well and in good health.

One thing which I’m sure you and I will most certainly agree upon concerning Songs of Praise and Scorn is that therein lies a narrative which nurtures a landscape both static and mutable, in which one who lucidly sets out upon their path can all at once feel both safe at home, and abandoned in some foreign and forgotten place. Like hungry ghosts, these songs have an inconsolable longing to find rest- they are imbued with an urgency, as are all living things, when confronted with their own most recently recognized mortality.

These recordings where made in a matter of days in the wet heat of August in an apartment located above a functioning funeral home in Louisville, KY which has been in constant operation since 1848. At times the recording sessions would cease for various intervals out of respect for the family and friends of the recently departed, who would gather below to say their final farewells. After said observances, the sessions would resume again and carry on late into the summer night and early morning.

All that the author asks of you, dear Reader, is this: that you treat these things with care. Treat them as both fragile and indestructible; as both ancient and unfounded. Hold them in your kind, tired hands and watch them spin as if propelled by some yet to be named, hidden and benevolent friend. Please, let yourself find comfort in their unmeasurable embrace so that they may find their life in you.

Sincerely yours in friendship,
Rev. A. Revenant