Ever since I decided to stop trying to know everything about new music (I really recommend this; it’s very liberating), I’ve been able to focus on my favorite genre, which the good people of ImageUpdate recently made fun of me for: “Recording Artists Who Kinda Sound Like They Might Be Christians.”

I thought I might spill a little digital ink about the records I’ve heard during Q1 of 2010 (which includes some late 2009 releases) that intersect in some way with the Christian faith.

James Pants—Seven Seals (Stones Throw Records)

I went to college with James Singleton, and he lives in my hometown, but I think he also lives on another planet, because the music he makes does not seem to come from this century, or galaxy. Seven Seals sounds like a record made by a 1980s televangelist trying to launch a sexy apocalyptic cult, starting off with the fear and trembling of “The Eyes of the Lord” and ending with a New Age-y wash of synths on “Oceans.” Seven Sealsalternates between goofy, scary, groovy, and reverent—kind of like American fundamentalist Christianity.

Ortolan—Time on a String (Sounds Familyre Records)

Regular readers of Image might remember my overly enthusiastic endorsement in issue #42 of Sounds Familyre as the best possible model of a faith-based record label, and they rarely disappoint. Ortolan is an “all-girl” band (as opposed to “all-boy?”), all of them are related, they are named after a tiny bird that you eat, and the singer/songwriter, Stephanie Cottingham, is only 16. It sounds a little cutesy, but Ortolan’s music has the unpredictable energy of artists like Rilo Kiley and Regina Spektor—tempered by a charming domesticity.

Orient is His Name—Mea Culpa (self-released)

Lee Bozeman is a criminally unrecognized musician. With the rock band Luxury, he made four albums of sensual, nervous rock in the vein of the Smiths and Radiohead, then made an astonishing masterpiece of guilt and spiritual longing, Love and Affection, under the name All Things Bright and Beautiful. He is now in training to be an Orthodox priest and has released this haunting EP of stripped-down ballads. As he has throughout his career, Bozeman has married sadness and hope in a woundingly beautiful collection of songs. It’s available free at http://orientishisname.com/.

Lackthereof—A Retrospective 1998-2008, or I Was A Christian Emo Twentysomething (Barsuk Records)

Danny Seim plays in the inventive Portland-based pop band Menomena and has also made recordings, mostly not released to a wide audience, under the name Lackthereof for many years. This album collects highlights from those recordings, and if these songs are any indication, they are paranoid, jittery, and fascinating records. Mostly rooted in impatiently genre-shifting indie rock, the songs are written from the perspective of a young person (Seim himself, no doubt) navigating the creeds and practices of Evangelical culture, with both sometimes heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious results—see songs like “Tongues O’ Fire,” “Abstinent Dry Sex,” and “Modern Christianity.” I wish I had the lyrics in front of me (liner notes: a casualty of the iPod age), just so I could understand more of the gems like: “I’m giving ten percent and passing the plate / while smiling so hard that my jaw is on fire.”

The Opiate Mass—Make a Sound (self-released)

This formerly nameless group used to put on a quarterly worship service in the Seattle area called Urban Hymnal, which I never made it to, so I’m happy to see that they’ve turned their endeavor into a proper band. Their first recording is an ambitious blend of Sigur Ros-style post-rock (vocalist Tara Ward does a kind of glossolalial vocalese), blippy electronica, chamber-pop, and neoclassical hymnody. It might be hyperbolic to say that the Opiate Mass is making the most innovative and sincere religious music in the country right now (and a little biased, since I know a lot of the musicians)—but I really think it’s true. I think of this as the Christian music of my generation—rooted in pop, but reaching both backward toward tradition and forward toward eternity.