Pastoral Psalms Album – Digital

Originally released in 2014, the Pastoral Psalms Album was revised in 2016 to include a choral version of Psalm 23 recorded by the Collegium Musicum of London Chamber Choir. This album features ten psalms in the KJV translation set to new music in a contemporary “unplugged style”.

$13.99

Details

Produced by John Piper

Musical compositions by David Albracht
Chordal & Guitar Arrangements by John Piper

Recorded in the Dallas area, Louisiana, and London*
Engineered & Mixed by John Piper
Mastered by Pete Maher

Musicians:
David Albracht – Guitar, Vocals
Ken Boome – Piano
John Bryant – Percussion
Milo Deering – Guitar, Dobro, Mandolin, Violin, Viola
Mike Drake – Percussion
Lou Harlas – Bass
Pearce Meisenbach – Cello
John Piper – Guitar, Glockenspiel, Organ

* Choral Arrangement of Psalm 23 by Paul Ayres
Recorded by the Collegium Musicum of London
Chamber Choir
Conducted by Greg Morris
Pianist: Andrew McCafferty
Engineered & Mixed by Jonathon Haskell

Description

The Pastoral Psalms album consists of fifteen tracks that feature ten of the biblical psalms in the KJV translation set to new music. The musical style is “pastoral” in the sense that the instrumentation is acoustic and unplugged (without electronica). Recording began in 2007 and continued through 2013. Much of the recording, editing, and mixing took place over long distances, with John Piper residing in Louisiana and David Albracht and other musicians located in the Dallas, Texas area.

Two of the psalms on the album, Psalm 84 and Psalm 5, are arranged as three movements each. Psalm 34 is the longest track on the album lasting nearly 8 minutes. After the release of the album in 2014, Psalm 23 was arranged for choir & piano by Paul Ayres in 2015. The Collegium Musicum of London Chamber Choir recorded the choral arrangement several months later. The Pastoral Psalms album was then revised to include the addition of the choral version of Psalm 23.  Psalm 24 was also revised with the addition of harmony vocals. The album was remastered and re-released in 2016.

Digital Download Information and Playing: 

The MP3 tracks of the digital album were made of the highest sound quality available (320 kbps) during conversion from the master WAV files. The download zip file is 158 MB (megabytes) in size. Please allow a few minutes for the download process to complete. After download, double click on the zip file to unzip, and then open the corresponding folder which contains 15 MP3 files of the songs of the album. Drag or import the MP3 files into your media player (such as iTunes). The MP3 files contain lyrics (biblical text) which can be viewed with MP3 players that display lyrics.

Review of Pastoral Psalms

“What’s amazing about the Pastoral Psalms album is that the more that I play it, and become familiar with the words and sonic textures, and they infuse themselves into my consciousness, I can literally “meditate on the word day and night” (e.g. Psa. 1:2, Josh. 1:8). I play this CD at work in the background, and nobody really pays any mind because it sounds like pleasant light jazz; occasionally clever and facile but never obtrusive. Suddenly the phrasing of the words, like Shakespeare or Milton, touches me unexpectedly, and I feel as though I could sense, perhaps for the first time, what these texts meant to the apostles in the NT… it’s been a unique experience in my Christian life. It’s as if I can now feel the spirit of the oral tradition, and the word is indeed living and operative (Heb. 4:12), and the ancient yet again becomes new.”

Ebenezer Tolman
January 2015

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