This September sees the release of 'CLM presents' very first EP. The excitement of Alex and I has been captured by those who have been involved in the recording and producing. Likewise, due to the recent release of the promotional video we have also seen great excitement amongst those who have now heard about the EP. So I just wanted to blog a little bit about the journey that has got us to this point, the story behind 'Fall'.
In September 2010, Alex Hart and I met on a warm Saturday morning to work through some song writing. We'd been talking about it for a long while, and had finally reached the point where we felt it was a good thing. We began our first session in prayer and we knew that without the guidance of the Holy Spirit we were left powerless in producing anything of worth. After this we shared some ideas that we had musically and began to get some chords down and lyrics written.
We met up to write many times throughout the next 6 month. It often involved in sharing ideas and working together to write something. We found times of frustration, where we would share a chord sequence, only for the other person to write it off immediately. We found that the two characteristics that were paramount in this process were honesty and humility. Often we'd both disagree at what was right, but it was that honesty and openness that we felt got us to the point where we are now.
Through the many months and sessions of song writing, there were times of flowing writing where we would bounce ideas of each other and compose something that sounded great. There were also times that were dry, where it seemed like we were powerless to write anything. Such a time as this produced the song 'Your love'. We came together on a Saturday afternoon at church and we just got so frustrated at not being able to write anything. In the end I text a friend to ask what their favourite bible verses were. I then sat down and read these suggestions, and began to contemplate God's love. These verses clearly displayed that Jesus's love was an example to show us how to live, which produced the chorus for 'Your Love'.
We both felt that we wanted songs that would express where we were at with God, but also help CLM and others connect with God in worship. This was the inspiration for 'Create in Me'. Based on Psalm 51, this song talks of how we as sinful beings are welcomed in by a sinless God. And through this he creates something new in us and restores us to a right relationship with him. This Psalm echoes how I felt towards God through many difficult times in my life, and I found that as I shared that with members of CLM and other believers, this was a similar feeling.
Other songs were also bore out of Alex and my desire to see God glorified. Yahweh is the name given to God throughout a lot of the Old Testament. People try to label the OT God as mean and harsh. But he's the same God as we know now, he just dealt with the people of Israel in an apparent mean way due to their constant disobedience. He was actually very patient and graceful with them. So through singing 'Yahweh, you never change, you will remain always' reminds us that God is the same from the beginning of time to now, whose praise we should declare.
So that’s the story behind most the songs. In terms of recording, this has been a challenging but enjoyable experience. The first part of recording took place at the Welcome Centre, where we set up two of the rooms of the fourth floor for recording. One Saturday we recorded all the drum parts, keyboard parts and bass guitar parts. We also did part of the vocals. The rest of the recording was done at Matt Morton's house, St Jame's Church Vicarage. His band Arabella are all based there, and so they have one of their rooms set up for recording. Without Matt's help and expertise and that of Alex, the album would've have been more costly and time consuming. We really appreciate his help.
Matt and Alex worked extremely hard to get all the parts recorded and have since been mixing the tracks. This has been a long but valuable process. Many of the songs have various parts that add to the dynamic and layering required. But with this there is a lot of hard work to ensure that all parts blend in well. We are coming to the end of this process. Once this is complete we will design the EP cover and send the songs off for production. upon receiving the completed EP's, we can then look to sell them with all proceeds going towards the CLM building fund.
Steve