With the release of Josh Garrels’s brand new album Home merely days away (out April 7), this is your last opportunity to snag one of his previously released gems. Billed as “an LP of sight and sounds,” The Sea In Between Soundtrack is a fully realized audio-visual album that features Garrels and members of Mason Jar Music capturing deceptively simplistic live performances in stunningly picturesque landscapes around Mayne Island, British Columbia. The Village Voice described The Sea In Between Soundtrack as “Equal parts candid rumination and jaw-dropping performance all taking place on the rocky peninsulas and pine-lined shores of a location Wes Anderson would drool over.” You can also check out the full-length The Sea In Between Soundtrack documentary HERE.

NoiseTrade favorites Morning and Night Collective have just released the fourth installment in their Good Morning. Happy Easter. series and much like the three previous volumes, it’s a standout collection of diverse indie artists unifying under a common creative banner. Exploring the themes of Lent, Easter, and Pentecost, the songs featured on Good Morning. Happy Easter. effortlessly mix hymns both ancient and anew without being able to tell which is which. The unique sonic cohesion of Morning and Night Collective is perfectly exemplified in the way that the bubbly synth textures of JackRabbit’s “Oh Tom” and Tyler Ellison’s “Passion Song” sit so comfortably next to the acoustic intimacy of Von Strantz’s “Maybe” and “Sean Carter’s “Old Rugged Cross”.

With his drawled rasp and his honey-smooth delivery, boxer-turned-bluesman KaiL Baxley crafts a salt-and-sugar mix of dirty roots blues and vintage R&B melodies and rhythms. Heatstroke/The Wind and the War combines Baxley’s first two EPs and a bonus b-side (“War Dance”) into one greasy and gritty collection that feels as rich and heavy as the South Carolina soil from which he was raised. The juke joint slink of “Don’t Matter to Me” and the somber storytelling of “The Rebel” are fantastic entry points for this release. Keep your eyes and ears out for Baxley’s new album A Light That Never Dies slated to come out later this summer.

The Message of Easter (eBook)

With an invitational charge to “Evaluate Jesus for yourself – without the preconceptions, without the dogma, without the culture wars”, Eugene Petersen’s The Message of Easter is a modern translation of ancient Scripture that realigns the language in such a way to convey the original tone of the stories and messages. Pastor, poet and scholar Petersen has translated the entirety of the Bible in this way for The Message and he is currently offering a condensed glimpse into the engaging experience here with The Message of Easter. No matter if your level of interest is all-encompassing or non-existent, Petersen offers an equal opportunity encounter through an enjoyable read.