Sela Runn (aka Jonathan Seldat) has a new album coming out July 2021 called For a Long Time. It’s about love and loss and the creation spans a long time. So the title comes from the feeling of time passing and the actual passing of time.
Jonathan’s music is emotion-forward. Each song is very different from the next. He has great range and flexibility with his voice. So with a cinematic song like When Push Comes to Shove (see video), there’s a echoy twinge to his voice and My Prayer is more low and slow and reverent. The fluctuations in the song make the album feel like the sound track to a movie. It’s not a straightforward storyline to follow but that emotion or mood that makes you feel like you understand the action at a deeper level.
We learned more about Jonathan today that makes us understand how he does this a little more. He studied theology, although the music is not religious or even overtly spiritual but it taps into some primal feelings. In part because he is taking on universal journeys of love lost and the search for meaning. Also Jonathan is a teacher. My favorite image he left us is with the white board he uses to write songs. The songs start with a melody and progress to notes on the whiteboard and, if their good, they go into his journal. He’s a perfectionist with a method.
Mostly Minnesota 