Kindling Stone

By Ray Waddle:

What if you could jump out of your shadow and see your life as it really is, without illusion?

Isn't that what religion is supposed to do - bring a person to truth, stripped of nonsense, lies and fairy tales, and make peace with it?

Songwriter Chris Moore has been thinking this over for decades, using Buddhist, Quaker and Shaker traditions to get at it. His new acoustic duo (with Mark Wingate), Kindling Stone, confronts listeners with an unusual spiritual vibe. Their new CD embraces the style of 18th-century Protestant hymns, a cappella and Appalachia, with themes of death, serenity and humility, to produce a 21st-century zone of mindfulness and peace, a counterpoint to the furious in-your-face society we've made for ourselves.



Kindling Stone aims to create "spiritual music for reasonable minds.” Moore credits Music City for bringing it to fruition."When I got to Nashville five years ago, it became obvious to me that people take their music and their religious traditions seriously," he said. "If you want to participate in those conversations here, you need to bring discipline and effort to your own understanding of things."



Moore's interests read like a resume of spiritual globalization. He grew up in Maine near a Shaker village. Famous for furniture, the Shakers also contributed mightily to Protestant hymn history. Moore respects Quaker peace tradition and Buddhist practice, too. Connected to the local Buddhist community, he will emcee the Nashville Buddhist Festival on Oct. 4 at First Church Unity.



Moore finds links between rustic colonial Protestant and Buddhist attitudes. Both insist on spiritual realism, keep death in mind and ponder the meaning of suffering. Neither has patience with celebrity unreality or pompous rhetoric. Quakers and Buddhists specifically share a passion for taming the mind. "Both teach peace through action. They use concentration and mindfulness to bring about conditions for peace in one's life."



Kindling Stone's music delivers an old-time religious mood but indirect religious messages.Still, an impression builds. These aren't songs about love woes or midnight hijinks but about noticing the moment, cultivating alertness. Especially memorable is "Broken Racers." The music is austere, calming, evoking centuries of prayer in tiny chapels. The title suggests flawed humanity: we race constantly, unhappily, uncertainly. "Down, down the slope of time we run/Who will stop and turn an open eye/To the flock of geese now passing by?" In a week of rotten financial madness and helpless political posturing, roots music offers an uncorrupted witness to something better inside us. Says Moore: "We're entrusted to cultivate the good in ourselves by action and not just by thinking in an effort to see ourselves as we truly are." - The Tennessean

By Jon Weisberger

The duo of Chris Moore (mandolin, reed organ) and Mark Wingate (fiddle) occupy a small but discrete corner of musical territory where old-time sounds and gently austere sentiments blend with others in distinctly post-modern ways. There are touches of Sacred Harp singing and Shaker hymns, but Moore’s songs are also rooted in an appreciation for Quaker and Buddhist teachings that puts Kindling Stone’s “Spiritual Music For Reasonable Minds” tag on solid ground. Their self-titled debut is enhanced by contributions from Kenny Malone, Katie Studley (violin), the Infamous Stringdusters’ Travis Book (bass) and Wingate’s daughter Sarah Siskind on luminous harmony vocals. Siskind, herself a brilliant tunesmith, will be on hand at this benefit for the Nashville Friends Meeting and Nashville Buddhist Temple. - The Nashville Scene: Critics Picks