Above the sea of fog

In a fragmented culture hooked on the fragmented expression of TikTok and YouTube Shorts, here’s why I am excited about a Christian album full of fragments.

Fragmented art is nothing new. In 1818, German Romantic painter Caspar David the Sea Friedrich painted Wanderer above of Fog, depicting a man with his back to us, gazing out into an infinite landscape of mountains and fog. In the 1830s, Chopin crafts a cycle of Preludes with no indication of what they are preludes to. In both cases, we are left to ponder the implied, vast, unknowable whole that lies beyond.

In a similar vein, Michael J. Tinker’s latest album Standing at the Corner of the Universe is a series of fragmentary vignettes, capturing an instant of the Christian life for our reflection. Each song deposits the listener in medias res (into the middle of things). Throughout the album, the listening experience is an exercise in allowing the mosaic to coalesce and let a bigger, deeper picture slowly reveal itself.