Hillsong UNITED frontman Joel Houston has spent most of his career writing songs that filled arenas and church sanctuaries. But today’s release of The Profound Foolishness Of~—the debut album from his solo project amxnradio—feels more like a whispered prayer in the middle of the night than a worship anthem echoing through a megachurch.
“I wasn’t trying to write songs for church,” Houston said. “I was just making music again for the love of it. Songwriting has always been a refuge for me—even before anyone ever heard my songs, that’s where I found God.”
For the past year, Houston has been steadily pulling back the curtain on this new creative stream—posting unreleased demos, abstract visuals, lo-fi audio experiments and long-form reflections on faith and mystery. None of it looked like a traditional album rollout. That was the point.
“I’ve been playing with release strategies,” he said. “Dropping songs in small batches, experimenting with formats.”
And now the full album is here. The result is a collection of ambient, genre-defying tracks that float somewhere between worship music and sound art. While there are undoubtedly infectious melodies (Houston can’t help being a great songwriter), there are no big hooks, no tidy resolutions—just honest, searching songs that unfold slowly, like they’re still figuring themselves out.
“The Psalms are full of songs that wrestle through doubt and struggle,” he said. “That’s what I wanted this music to be—a journey.”
amxnradio (pronounced “Amen Radio”) was never meant to replace Hillsong UNITED, the globally influential worship collective Houston still leads. It’s a parallel path—one that’s a little more raw, a little more strange and a lot more personal.
“UNITED is my main thing. amxnradio is my main thing,” he said. “Now, with this space to experiment, I feel like I can be more true to both.”
He’s not worried about whether the songs will work in a church service. He’s more interested in what they unlock in the quiet, overlooked spaces of life.
“Most of a person’s week isn’t spent inside a church building,” he said. “But there’s no reason worship music can’t be the soundtrack to all the other moments—the car rides, the late nights, the everyday mundane.”
The album’s name hints at the tension it embraces—the line between divine wonder and human absurdity, between what makes sense and what’s still unspeakably holy.
“If we fail, let’s at least fail in the most beautiful way possible,” Houston said.
The Profound Foolishness Of~ is streaming now.
Title: Joel Houston’s amxnradio Album Is Here—and It Sounds Nothing Like You’d Expect
URL: https://relevantmagazine.com/culture/music/joel-houstons-amxnradio-album-is-here-and-it-sounds-nothing-like-youd-expect/
Source: REL ::: RELEVANT
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Date: April 9, 2025 at 03:29PM
Feedly Board(s): Religion