God Sometimes

Ambitious singer-songwriter Andrew Lipke summons The Plague.

by John Vettese

Doug Seymour CROSSED SWORDS: Lipke calls religion "the defining conflict of our age," and takes a two-pillared approach to it in his new songs.

[ songs of revelation ]

"If I do it right, this song could probably get picked up by churches," Andrew Lipke muses. "Well, up to a point at least."

Surrounded by mics, mixers and the maroon walls of his Kensington home studio, Lipke plays some rough cuts from his forthcoming album. The music in queue is an interpretation of the Sunday School hymn "This Is the Day"; it's respite from the apocalyptic vignettes on The Plague.

"There are two religiously fueled pillars of this work. One is more optimistic," the songwriter explains as a jovial church basement piano builds into a rollicking full band. "And one is cynical."

The band peaks and fades. The piano slips into a funereal minor key. Lipke talks of dissonance and spooky children's choirs. "It descends into a very uncomfortable-feeling place."

Finding beauty in discomfort is no foreign territory for Lipke. His 2008 album Mother Pearl and Dynamite had "Flesh and Bone," a sweeping, serene song about drowning. In concert, his rendition of Neil Young's free-associative bad trip "After the Gold Rush" is sublime. And The Plague ponders existence and mortality in a cycle of songs set at the end of the world, a place where blind faith has proven useless and the meaning of life is revealed to be, well, living (this stuff is much more Thus Spake Zarathustra than Left Behind).

The project has taken two years of preparation, from drawing up the themes and building out his basement studio to drafting sheet music. This Saturday, Lipke premières the songs (though not in sequence) at the Tin Angel with West Chester's Azrael Quartet — violinists Dana Weiderhold and Anida Goga, violist Heather Wright and cellist Krista Umile. On Dec. 29, he gives a full album performance at the Sellersville Theater, backed by the quartet as well as his rock band The Prospects. He anticipates a March release date for the finished product. The gradual rollout of The Plague seems apt. "I've always liked grand, complicated things," Lipke says. "And for me, [mortality] is one of the biggest, if not the biggest thing you have to deal with in life."

It's a rich subject — and one Lipke feels particularly comfortable digging into. His father, the Rev. Dennis Lipke, is a Methodist minister. Andrew grew up in a very religious environment, and was involved in international mission work as a youth. "It got me comfortable thinking about heavy subjects."

Lipke calls religion "the defining conflict of our age." But while the songwriter and his current song cycle lean strongly in opposition to organized faith, he is no hardened atheist, either. "There is a transcendent, ineffable spark everybody has," he says. "It's not all biology. There is a spirit. It's all the ways the spirit gets distorted that are frustrating."

(j_vettese@citypaper.net)

Andrew Lipke and the Azrael Quartet play Sat., Sept. 18, 7:30 p.m., $10, Tin Angel, 20 S. Second St., 215-928-0770, tinangel.com.