Hear Samples Of Brand New Sojourn Worship Songs From Upcoming Isaac Watts CD

Behind The Scenes In The Studio With Sojourn Music

Sojourn is recording our full-scale follow-up to 2007’s Before the Throne.  As RSS subscribers and other regular sojournmusic.com viewers know, this will be the first of two CDs of original worship music based on the hymns of Isaac Watts.  While our second CD will have an Americana vibe, this first one will feature an aggressive indie pop sound.

So … wanna go into producer Neil Robins’ mix room, take a look around, and hear a little bit of what’s ahead?  I recently stopped in on an instrumentalist recording session.  In the first video below (which you can also download for free from our podcast, Sojournmusic.com Radio, from iTunes and other podcast directories) you’ll see Pastor Mike Cosper (ready to play bass guitar on this session), drummer Smitty Smith and guitarist David Weir talking as they prepared for a night of recording.  Meanwhile, Neil plays a snippet from an unmixed recording they’d worked on the previous night.

The song is called “Over Death,” written by Jesse “Jay” Eubanks and, of course, Isaac Watts.  It comes from Watts’ “Victory over Death” hymn, based on 1 Corinthians 15:55.  Like I said, it’s unmixed (and will sound a bit rough anyway, given that I captured this video on a Flip Mino video recorder while the song was playing over speakers in the background).  Also, the vocals you’ll hear at the end of the video are “dummy” vocals by Neil.  Not that he’s a dummy, per se, but that he’d recorded the vocal as a demo.  One of our vocalists will later record the final cut.

 

The second video features a quick interview I did with Neil while he attempted to adjust the speed of a demo he recorded all by his multi-talented self.  The song is “Refuge,” written by Neil and his wife Kate, the couple from the rock band Dirt Poor Robins.  It’s taken from Watts’ “Deliverance From Death,” based on part of Psalm 31.  Neil and the Sojourn musicians decided to record it slightly faster than on Neil’s demo, so he adjusted the speed of his demo, which you can hear now:

 

By the way, you’ll notice that Neil’s can of Pepsi is clearly on display in several shots from the first video.  How is that for product placement, Pepsico?  Want to sponsor us?  Call me.

Next week, another inside look — and listen — inside the recording of Sojourn’s new worship CD.