Night of worship at CFNI last night was the “CD release party” for the Perfect Love CD, recorded (ostensibly) at the night of worship in February. It’s a CD/DVD set with 11 songs:
- Oh Crimson Flow – Josh Hickman and Matt Birkenfeld
- Glorify Our King – Kristian Baker and Monika Robertson
- Something So Real – Amsi Hernandez
- Wonderful God – Denis Campos
- He Is – Gabriel Allred
- Blessed is the One – Tom Ewing
- Perfect Love – Denis Campos
- All of Me – Denis Campos
- You Deserve it All – Bethany Stevens
- You are Holy – Richy Clark/Radiant Worship
- I Give You Glory – Andres Spyker (originally Te Doy Gloria)
I give you Glory has a lot of energy and is fun to sing (we’ve been doing this at church since Klause Kuehn released his version a year or so ago). He Is and You Deserve it All aren’t on our list yet, but I’m adding both of them. Both very worshipful. You are Holy and Wonderful God are nice well, and we may add them soon.
The CD is ok, but misses almost all the energy from the live session. It was the most tense cfni recording I’ve been too. On the accompanying DVD only Jeremy Alderete on bass and a few of the choir members are smiling. Everyone else has that look someone gets when the dentist prescribes a root canal. The rule for performing holds true for recording. Practice until you can do it in your sleep, then get up there and enjoy yourself. None of the main players were there, and the whole situation seemed to tightly strung.
The DVD also suffers from too many re-dos – it seems like most of the vocal leads, a lot of guitar, and some keyboards and bass. To facilitate the punch-ins they had to keep house noise and open mics low which makes the recording quite sterile. In general you hear vocals – far far above anything else – then drums and bass, and then the occasional guitar, keyboards, violin or cello. Randy Adams might have been forced into this to make it work at all, but it doesn’t work well. There were about 100 people on the platform and you rarely hear more than 4 of them at a time.
If you have Perfect Love and want to prove this to yourself, compare the enclosed DVD with one of the youtube bootlegs of the same songs. Yes, the DIY recordings include all the mistakes, but they’re actually easier to watch. Some of this may be the the video production technique of flipping cameras every 0.5 seconds.
Ok so enough kvetching. I bought a copy for myself and a copy for a friend, so I couldn’t have hated it all that much. I like the songs and the people who wrote them. Probably the night of recording was what turned me off. I’m sure I’ll be listening to a lot of the songs for years.
Tags: cfni, christ for the nations, Perfect Love
