FAITHFUL : NightVision
A guy's perspective on an album made (almost) entirely by women...
The third and final album from the Faithful project came out on Friday.
It’s actually the second of a pair of albums based around the Psalms.
The entire project - three albums and a book - was written, produced, performed and designed by women. Some of the most passionate, talented and inspired women I’ve ever met.
(Yes, I’m a guy. My friends Keely Scott at Compassion International and David McCollum, an artist manager, brought the idea to me, to see if the record label I worked for at the time would be interested in helping develop the idea into something more tangible. Thus, the three of us became executive directors of the project, working in the background through it all.)
It was an incredible honor to stand in the back of the room for the past few years as our artist and author friends dug into the stories and Psalms of the Bible and created in return. I have learned so much more about who God is by being in their presence as they created in His.
This final album, Nightvision, is stunningly beautiful. Jess Ray and Tayla Rede did an amazing job with the production, and it just wraps you in its arms and invites you in.
How it all happened is actually a wild story.
Up until two weeks before the recording we had planned to go up to Canada to record in a chapel in Ann VosKamp’s small town, but last minute, as Covid was resurging and passports weren’t getting back in time, it was all falling apart.
I reached out to the guys in MercyMe, who have an amazing studio in a log cabin south of Nashville, and they very kindly gave us the keys and just let us use it for free for a week.
Amy Grant last minute let us take over her farm for a day and film a bunch of stuff out at her barn. Jess and I recorded Ellie‘s lead vocal in a tiny log cabin with no electricity out in the middle of a forest. It was amazing.
It turned out to be the perfect environment. The record sounds better than it ever would have, and the all women project did let one man play on the record, because Mike’s amazing old red 1960’s Gibson 335 was sitting there in the studio and they saw me eyeing it all week, and finally they were like “Andrew, just play the guitar, man. It’s ok.” So, that was fun.
The album features performances by Jillian Edwards, Sandra McCracken, Sarah Kroger, Savannah Locke, Janice Gaines, Ginny Owens, Sara Groves, Ellie Holcomb, Leslie Jordan, JJ Heller, Rachael Lampa, Jess Ray, Taylor Leonhardt, Sarah Macintosh and Tamar Chipp. The songs were written by this group as well as authors Ann Voskamp, Trillia Newbell, Kelly Needham and Raechel Myers and Amanda Bible Williams from She Reads Truth.
The best part of this whole project, for me personally, has been bringing my daughters to the songwriting gatherings, which we would host back at the old Art House Studios where I used to work, and get to watch my girls watch a room full of amazing women create with such force, beauty and intentionality. It’s a thing not many people will ever get to witness, I’m aware, and it left a huge mark on all of us.
So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them. - Genesis 1:27
We saw the image of God so clearly in that room, in those women, and I hear it in these albums.
It’s a testament to who they are, and to who God is.
Due to some record label politics above my pay grade and beyond my control, the marketing of this project fell between the cracks in some ways, I’ll be honest. It’s one of the hardest things to watch in my line of work. Especially when it’s not an artist, who has the potential to go on and still have their moment somewhere else, when a project like this is done, it’s done. So, I am hoping these songs find their way somehow anyway. They’re just so beautiful and powerful and so important, at least in the lives of those of us who have lived with them thus far.
If you have an hour this week, spend it with this record. I think you’ll be really glad you did.
Here’s the video for the song “Unfailing Love”, featuring Ellie Holcomb and Sara Groves.
The first two Faithful albums was such a light for me at a time when I really needed them, putting this on the list!