Grace and Peace my friends,

Things are starting to heat up once again in the land of SoCal, so I thought I'd share what's going on with Semper Reformanda and our network of friends:

• "Cry Out" by the band Ish should be arriving next week. I'm excited about this as I began a friendship with Dan & the MIchigan gang back in the Fall, so to see the fruit of their hard work is exciting. I'll post once its available and put up a couple songs w/ some chord charts for all you worship dudes/dudettes.
• Luke Morton's album "No More to Fear" has been doing well - thanks to all who've purchased it and supported Luke's ministry and schooling. Luke played the first "Chik-Fil-A Concert Series" show at Covenant Seminary two weeks ago for his CD release and it went really well.
• SRR has just inked (read: handshaked) a deal with Seattle musician Nathan Partain to release his album, "Parlour Sessions." Luke Morton passed me a copy of this album and I was blown away by its content, intimacy and Nathan's voice - and its got some cool Irish penny whistle on it, and who doesn't like that? Nathan is the Chief Musician for Greenlake Presbyterian Church (where my brother-in-law attends and my sis-in-law plays violin) and one of the founders of the Liturgy Fellowship. This album should be available in June (or whenever Nathan gets me artwork?)
• Most of the songs for my 2nd Tales of Thomas album have been written and mapped out; I've even started to road test them at church to make sure they're singable. The title will simlpy be "Liturgy". I've gone back thru the most popular liturgies of the church and rewritten/reshaped the most common introits, psalms, hymns, and prayers that have been the backbone for Christian worship over the last 2 thousand years. This, of course, isn't really a groundbreaking concept, but I think the music and arrangements are some of the best things I've ever done. This album will be much more organic and rely heavily on orchestral instrumentation, mixing up classical, folk and pop elements in my usual indie way. I've been inspired a lot by Devotchka, Arcade Fire, Beirut and Regina Spektor, so you'll hear some Eastern influences thrown in for good measure. Most the tunes are piano heavy, but there are a couple that feature acoustic guitar. This album is definitely a departure from the last one. The songs will follow the flow of a real service and even trasition in key nicely - or at least to the best of my ability. The only thing holding me back is a new pre-amp and condensor mic, which I hope to have by next month. I'll tentatively have this one out by the Fall.
• Lastly, early next year I will be working on developing contemplative transition videos that will be designed to create a seguay into the sermon. There are a few companies doing this, but I haven't really found any that accomplish what I desire, so I'm just gonna have to make my own - and then hopefully...others may want them, too. These will be designed to go along with a book of the Bible and follow the normal preaching breaks. They will feature text, questions, and quotes in front of cool and transitioning backgrounds - sometimes live video - set with diverse instrumental music. The idea is that these transition videos will visually, aurally and intellectually stimulate the worshiper prior to the message preached. Can you say multi-sensory? I knew you could. Let me know if you've used something like this and if you found it worthwhile?

God bless you all my creative brethren. Shalom.   - BT