Jon Foreman

Contemporary Christian music has always been a strange animal, stretching the limits of the "in the world but not of it" philosophy through rampant commercialization yet forever segregated to the back racks of your local record shop. But Like P.O.D. or Jars of Clay, Switchfoot is one of the few who have been able to successfully tighten that gap, mostly due to frontman Jon Foreman's humanist songwriting, informed by Protestant vernacular rather than cut-and-pasting hymn book truisms. Now delving even further into his singer-songwriter roots, Foreman has released a series of four solo EPs--one named for each season of the year--all written, recorded and produced himself, often in the solitude of his home. Indebted to praise band confessionals but playing more like street-busking folk, Foreman's tunes may occasionally slip into campy LifeWay slogans, but are surprisingly authentic.
Mon., Aug. 25, 8 p.m., 2008