While scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed a couple of weeks ago, I came across a fundraising post for Next Church’s new recording project. This prompted phone conversations with Nexters Brendan Lorimer and Josh Lyon.
This is not the first Next Church recording. Around 11 (1999) and Sweet Dark (2006) are both available for download on Next Church’s website. I asked Brendan about their recording history. “A defining aspect of Next Church is our approach to music,” he said. “We are a church that takes music very seriously. We make records because everyone at Next loves music, how it functions in the life of a church community and how it is so powerful in facilitating our relationship with God and understanding Him.”
It has been eight years since their last recording so I asked Josh what prompted Ramshackle Redemption their latest recording project, “The community has been asking for it for a while. There was a strong call for us to record something so people could have the songs available at other times.”
Brendan echoed that and added, “So much has changed in the community it felt like it was time to make a record that marked our community as it is now. Albums are kind of like time capsules it takes a picture of what Next looks like at a specific point.”
The Next Church band recorded their tracks last weekend with original music written by members of the community and other songs that are meaningful to them. Next up: recording overdubs and any additional vocals, then mix and master the album so it sounds crispy and sweet. If there is any money left they would like to make some physical copies. Ramshackle Redemption (working title) should be ready for release in January 2015.
If you want to have a listen, there are a bunch of rough tracks streaming on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com/nextchurch/ but remember, these new recordings are going to sound way better once they’re done!
Brendan closed our chat with this: “There are lots of reasons to celebrate music in our community… but we are doing this recording to glorify God and this is our very humble offering to celebrate the gift God gives us.”
There are four days left in the Ramshackle Redemption fundraising campaign. They have currently raised $1225 of their $1500 goal. If you would like to contribute check out their IndieGoGo campaign:<https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-next-next-church-album/.
