Jason Sebastian Russo,Hopewell, Common Prayer

  I just found out about him; and I don't know where to "file" Jason Sebastian Russo and his bands Hopewell and Common Prayer (and formerly of Mercury Rev)...some say space rock..others psychedelic indie rock, shoegaze, scifi gospel artrock (just made that one up) etc..

I don't know where to file Jason Sebastian Russo  himself spiritually.  From my first glnce at his lyrics  on the Hopewell and The Birds of Appetite CD, I said, "Wow, there is a Godhaunted man who obviously grew up in church."  Articles and interview do often mention that he grew up in "very religious" home, but nowhere is the tradition specified.  Russo: "I grew up in a really religious household where we were taught that the world is going to hell, Satan was going to be released from his chains and we probably would have to live in the basement and eat the cat to survive. "   Hmm,  That doesn't sound very Catholic, but strangely he speaks of childhood church services as  "mass".

JR:Hopewell definitely focuses on the transcendental, and Common Prayer sticks around the house. The sanctity of the mundane..

I think it's safe to say that the two bands are trying to arrive at the same place by going in opposite directions. One going out, one going in. After enough interstellar travel, you start to notice that the pattern is self-replicating. The more you zoom out to take in the data, the more the picture keep resolving to be the same basic shape. As above so below. Perhaps it's just a matter of scale..

 Question: You've said 'I say a prayer to everything going.' Is this a matter of not holding on, being open to everything; finding wonder in the new, to keep moving?

JR: At some point, I realized that what my parents call God, I call "everything going how everything goes" - so, prayer.  link