I have been … deeply … involved in music and religion for most of my life. An old friend once invited me to sing some truly ancient hymns from Russia when he was studying the language (they predated even mediaeval music notation) — they were eerily similar to shaped-note singing.

This music has a delicacy, but also a characteristic I call “stopping power”, by which I mean the ability to pull you in suddenly (and a little dramatically), making you forget the world and its wee troubles. Deeply unfortunate that most of us have forgotten how to make it, or even hear it. It is our birthright as humans.