Salvation is Created is the new record from Bifrost Arts. It is a modern-day oratorio that seeks to present the Christmas story stripped of sentimentality in the hopes of revealing afresh the mystery and strangeness of Christmas as it is initially emerged. By making the familiar unfamiliar, the listener is reintroduced to the Christmas drama and encounters beauty to be sure, but also blackness, dry desert, strange noises from unknown sources, and the confusion and anxiety so latent in the situation. The quiet and fragile hope provided by a baby born without medical assistance in an unsuitable environment, in an insignificant town and amongst circumstances dangerous both physically and politically, takes on greater poignancy. The outcome of the story is unknown and uncertain, and certainly not the prelude that one would expect to the story of a king or universal triumph.