GUNGOR'S ONE WILD LIFE : SOUL

Gungor had released one of their trilogy (Soul, Spirit, Body) of One Wild Life Album!

I was very excited for this album cause it marks Gungor's comeback to the CCM world! I've been following Gungor for several years now with Yesternite and Please Be My Strength (try listening to Nicole Zefanya's cover) being two of my favourite tracks and I Am Mountain being my favourite album (even though it clearly wasn't aimed at their typical "folk-rock" audience). Gungor's music is technically challenging (Michael Gungor's impressive instrumental skills, Lisa and Michael's enchanting vocals, performances packed with amazing instrumental breaks), you just have to listen to their tracks using headphone. One reviewer made this remark, “Gungor really is not shy of complicated rhythms and fast tempos with changing time signatures,” oh man, I cannot agree more. However, the reason behind my attraction towards Gungor isn't just based on my love for music in general or their reputation as a band with amazing musicality, cause I find myself actually putting efforts to keep up with their music. This is quite a big deal because if you know me in real life, you'll notice that even though I've eyes for details, when it comes to music, my holistic-approach-towards-thing tendency usually comes to surface. It's hard for me to focus, let alone pick, only one musician/artist. I like seeing things in a bigger picture and how they are connected with each other so I tend to listen to a bunch of different things at the same time. That is to say, unless it's a musician I'm really interested in, I don't usually bother looking up for their musical journey; interviews, stories behind their music, meanings behind their lyrics, etc. So the reason why I am particularly attracted to them is because Gungor basically challenges the stereotypes of Christians and Christian labelled products. There's a lot of stereotypes, but let's take one thing at a time, let's talk about suffering. Christians do not have it easier than anyone else. Christians, like J. S Park wrote here, aren't "naive, susceptible, and weak-minded overly protected religious people who didn't know the harsh underside of life." Being a Christian does not exclude you from all the hardships and sufferings, but I guess the difference is that because we know that life in Christ is not about happiness and good things will come out of those sufferings, things He has in plan, we are able to see sufferings from a different perspective. Gungor I believe, is one out of many artists out there who had struggled and eventually made something out of it, because they are grounded in the notion that suffering is as much as a gift as the trusting. One Wild Album is an album born out of struggles. In one of their blog post introducing their new album, Michael writes, "The first Album, Soul, was born out of a tremendous amount of both pain and love. 2014, the year that gave birth to this project, was the hardest year of our lives. In 2014, we felt betrayed, we felt judged. We felt abandoned. But we also felt exceptionally loved. We felt hope. We felt passion and faith. So we wrote about all of it. From the birth of our daughter* to the re-awakening of faith, hope, and love." And I feel like we certainly cannot consider Gungor as "safe" just because it is labelled as CCM. The genre itself is currently being redefined, new grounds being covered. "Gunger has changed Christian music from cheesy, friendly, copycat pop to deep serious music." Indeed. You'll know when you listen to this album and their previous works. It's experimental. It's full of joy and dark at the same time. It pushes the boundaries of musical exploration and expression. Have fun digging more into their music, use your headphone and pay attention to their lyrics. Eargasm and further contemplations about existential topics are two things I guarantee you'll attain afterwards. *The song Light, is dedicated to the couple's daughter with down-syndrome and two heart conditions (whom they had in 2014) and all other people with special needs.