Hello there and welcome to The Mossy Mosaic where I, the Editor, will be rounding up my favorite new music and music videos from the past week on a (hopefully!) weekly basis. It’ll be a place where I can totally be myself and can rant and rave about what I’ve loved lately while not worrying about needing to be ‘professional’…not that I manage that during the week anyway!! It’ll also give me a chance to mention some of the new things I haven’t had the time to cover through a news article.
There will be other articles I’ll be sharing through The Mossy Mosaic too but I’ll go into that and share the meaning behind the column’s name another time. Oh and I love discovering new music so please comment below with links to stuff you’ve enjoyed over the past week – maybe I’ll add a section for “stuff I missed last week that someone else recommended that I loved” (although with better wording!).
Right let’s get on with looking through the best new music from the week of 6/18-6/24/18 then…
…but first, let’s start this week with some videos outside of the music world (just to be difficult)…
Most of you reading this will have seen this by now…and most of you, like myself, won’t mind seeing it again, and again, and even again? Chris Pratt stole the show at the MTV Movie & TV awards with one of the best award speeches I can ever remember seeing – not that I can remember many, seeing as I pretty much never watch award shows! Chris Pratt managed to effortlessly mix ‘preaching’ about God’s love and…advice on how to poop at a party without anyone knowing! And it’s that combination that made his speech both relatable and oh so much more brilliant. Oh and it was funny, and that’s always a big plus in my book! Enjoy his message to the next generation…
I can tell you something for free already, Dude Perfect videos will always be featured in this column every couple of weeks, as will How Ridiculous videos every single week. The comments each time will also always revolve around “HOW COOL IS THAT?”, “I WANT A GO!” and “I WANT TO JOIN THEM!”!! So let’s kick this first intro off as follows…In the latest Dude Perfect video they play football in go karts, I mean HOW COOL IS THAT?!! I WANT TO JOIN DUDE PERFECT and boy oh boy do I WANT A GO!…
…and now onto the How Ridiculous boys from down under (no as in they’re from Australia, not that they’re zombies!). I first properly came across Brett, Derek and the wonderfully eccentric Scott towards the start of last year after I went searching for “that video which demonstrated the magnus effect from some lunatics chucking a basketball off a dam.” I immediately got hooked on watching all of their “sciencey” dam videos but it was the captions from the 10:50 mark of this video which made me fall in love with them. I’ve been obsessed with them ever since! Enjoy their madness as they continue to play with their new toy. That thing is a BEAST!
Philippa Hanna continues her year of releasing daily inspiring videos and is almost at the half way mark! Be sure to subscribe to her channel to be positively inspired every day…
Right let’s get on with some music (videos) then…
The week kicked off in the best way possible, why? because NF dropped a surprise new single (which just so happens to be called Why!). Waking up to find a new NF video to watch with my breakfast was just b-e-a-utiful. Why has a much darker feel to it than possibly all of his previous music but boy is it awesome…
My favorite new video of the week came from Cole DeRuse for his song Leper off his Live On EP. The song and video features Alex Sons and the raptastic A.Ward, and carries with it a wonderful message of not treating anyone who’s different differently from anyone else (wow that’s a mouthful!). If you haven’t yet heard of Cole DeRuse, don’t sleep on him any longer!
Derek Minor dropped his new video for Of Course featuring Byron Juane on Friday and took the already fire song to the next level, a blaze if you will?! I love the the song but it features a few moments of Derek minor intentionally ‘huffing’/’puffing’ in an awesome way, and after hearing Chris Chicago’s ridiculously good impersonation of them on NGEN radio, I can only hear Chris’ version each time I listen to the song. That doesn’t ruin the song as such, it just makes it feel weird (the “Chris Chicago effect” maybe?!). His new album, The Trap, drops August 10.
Riley Clemmons’ Broken Prayers debut music video is without a doubt my most watched video since last December. I’ve been seriously looking forward to her debut album ever since and recently she announced it’ll be released August 3rd. Chances are I’ll get to hear it before that but either way I can’t wait! On Friday she launched the pre-order for the new self-titled album along with an instant-grat download of Broken Prayers, Better For It and a new deeper song ‘Broke’. Check out Broke…
“even in my darkest times, You love me when I’m broke inside”
So here’s the thing, I love pop music, as in REALLY love it. It doesn’t matter if a pop band’s target audience is young/teenage girls, chances are I’ll still LOVE it, and that’s exactly the case with Carmen’s former band 1 Girl Nation/1GN. Since the band went their different ways, I have loved Carmen Justice’s music almost as much as I loved 1GN. Her debut single Flaming Arrows resonated with me more than I can put into words. On Friday she released the music video for her latest single Cloud 9 and, as ever, Wander Creative did a marvelous job in bringing the song to life. Enjoy being transported to Cloud 9…
Tom Golly’s music has come on leaps and bounds since I/JesusWired first encountered his music and on Friday he released his new single His Name is Jesus. It’s beautiful and well written so check out the lyric video for it below, which we exclusively premiered all day on Friday.
Lecrae. You just have to say his name and you know what response you’ll get from many CHH fans! It’s a massive massive shame and it grinds my gears no end. I’ll certainly write another article or 15 about him/his ‘haters’ before I leave this earth so I won’t say anything else on this now other than ‘go and read his book’ and ‘actually listen to his music’ before commenting/judging. Seriously, read his book!
Anyways, Lecrae dropped his new collaboration mixtape with Producer Zaytoven on Friday called Let The Trap Say Amen. I’m actually yet to listen to all of it but I’ve been seriously loving what I’ve heard so far and specifically “Get Back Right”…
Always love a bit of Thi’sl…
When I said earlier I pretty much never watch award shows, the ‘pretty much’ refers to Christian award shows, either live during the early hours of the morning here or, more often than not now, via highlight clips. Award shows provide the wonderful platform for some unique and beautiful collaborations. I mean I’ll never forget Andy Mineo & Brian ‘Head’ Welch’s You Can’t Stop me collaboration at the 45th Dove Awards. This year’s K-Love fan awards saw Tauren Wells and Natalie Grant team up to sing a small medley of songs leading into Tauren’s hit song “When We Pray”, and it was wonderful!
Chris Tomlin surprised his fans by releasing a live music video for his latest powerful single Resurrection Power. I love this song!
This one may be controversial! Sevin’s music quite often features a few controversial lyrics, most of the time it’s the word used for referring to African-Americans but this time it could be around the use of the word ‘effing’. Personally I’m not a fan of it and think it could be avoided but I don’t have a problem with it nor am I the target audience for the music. I actually love Sevin’s music and really love his heart behind it (go and watch this documentary as a starting point!) and know many an artist who ‘swear’ he’s the real deal. I love this new song, think you will too and I’m sure I’ll love the new album which released Friday but, with my Editor’s hat on, I really struggle to know whether to cover him on the site (other than this!) or not. I want to and I’m sure I will soon but, ’til now, I’ve aired on the side of caution!
And lastly, Austin Lanier sneaked in right at the end of the week (last night!) with his new single/video “New Thangs”. Austin’s killer vocal vibes are irresistible and his new song is no different…
A quick summary of other things I’ve been digging/excited about…
J Vessel really is an artist to look out for. Find out the story behind his new song Lose Control here.
The news that Martin Smith will releasing a new live solo album in July has delighted me greatly! Read more here.
I Can Only Imagine is now the #1 DVD in America! Find out more here and if you haven’t seen it yet, go and buy it! You won’t regret it, it’s a brilliant movie!
Fades Away are back! Their new Resurrection Part 1 EP is phenomenal and this description from the band is super accurate…
…it sounds like the musical equivalent of the Yellowstone super volcano erupting while the Marine Corp Band plays a cover of “The Final Countdown” with Metallica while standing on top of a Monster truck that’s revving to the beat.
Rare Of Breed released his new The Mission EP and y’all really need to check it out. If I was asked to list my most underrated artists, he would be around the top of it, if not topping it. This also gives me an excuse to share one of my favorite songs from last year which is on the new EP!
This new single from Mosaic Rain Recordings and Mast of Glorious is lovely.
My favorite album of the past week?
That’s easy! It’s The Protest’s upcoming Legacy album, out July 13th. Here’s my thoughts on it from over the weekend and the music video for What Else You Got.
What’s coming up?
Next week sees the release of Hillsong Young & Free’s III album (bet you can’t guess what number album that would be for them!) as well as Marqus Anthony’s new album Walking By My Faith: Thru The Storm.
(non-Christian) Song Spotlight
Finally, I have to highlight this new song from Steven Cooper. Depression is something I really struggle with and Yesterday came about after Steven’s own struggles with it/is for all fellow strugglers. Struggle with depression? Please listen to this song, please reach out to someone for help and I highly recommend reading our column The Eccentric Sheep Musings written by one of our writers Courtney Simpson. (National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255)
And that’s it for this week! What have you been loving this past week? Tell me in the comments! I look forward to “seeing you” next week…
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