David Byrne's Luaka Bop label is releasing a compilation of "secular gospel" from the 1970s, with liner notes by Jonathan Lethem

Since its inception in 1988, David Byrne's Luaka Bop label has been a sure-fire source of some of the best music I've ever heard, from its compilations of Brazilian and Cuban music to bands like Cornershop, Os Mutantes, and Tom Ze. Though Byrne is no longer running the label, it continues to blaze a remarkable musical trail: its next album will be The Time For Peace Is Now, a collection of "secular gospel" rarities from the 1970s, "focusing not on Jesus or God, but instead on ourselves, and how we exist with each other."

The music was recovered from "obscure 45s found in attics, sheds and crates across the American south" and it captures "an intense, soul-stirring version of gospel, unvarnished and honest, devout but never doctrinaire."

Above: a trailer for the album; below, Willie Scott & The Birmingham Spirituals performing "Keep Your Faith to the Sky."

Macarthur-prizewinner and science fiction writer Jonathan Lethem provided the liner notes. They read, in part:

Music as permanently strong and meaningful as this doesnt come from whereit comes from the opposite of nowhere. It comes from individual inspiration fired and forged and upheld by community, tradition, and context. Some of these songs are made by unknown persons who remain hidden from view; some by working musicians who moved from occasion to occasion and circumstance to circumstance. In either case, the creators in question left behind the particular piece of amazement collected here as a testament of one moment of synchronicity. This music has arrived here to change the world at last, or again.