Recorded at the famous Real World Studios in Bath and Bluebell Cottage in Somerset, SOUTHVILLE's Freedom's Tree will release on 6th October with Elim Sound Publishing. The Yeovil based worship collective's first album features a selection of songs from the 100 written over the course of 2016. These 100 songs came from a writing pool of over 20 local church writers as well as gaining the input of their church congregation at the Elim Church in Yeovil making this a particularly unique project that really was composed 'by the church, for the church.' Choosing to work with K Collective in the production of this album (a group whose previous work has been pre-dominantly Pop/R&B/Gospel) has given it a truly fresh and intriguing sound - balancing pure acoustic instruments against a backdrop of synthetic goodness.
    
"The whole dream starting in a coffee shop at the start of 2016. What if we could engage our entire church congregation in songwriting? What if we could encourage creativity throughout our whole church family - not just within the worship team? It all stemmed from there. We planned in songwriting retreats that were open to anybody, and then built in Sunday night services called 'Southville Sounds' where we would lead 8 new songs each time and invite feedback and questions from the wider congregation. We would even give out literal feedback sheets to gain as much insight as we could into what was working and what wasn't resulting in changes to the songs throughout the album. This was an incredible time of growth for us, and we certainly learnt to take criticism a lot better right from the start! A big memory for me was the Southville Sounds night where we first played the album title track - Freedom's Tree. One of the questions on the feedback form was 'which song was your favourite'? This particular night every sheet came back stating Freedom's Tree as number one - it was at that point that we really realised there was something special about this song."
 
SOUTHVILLE aim to bring their songs on a UK tour over the next year hoping to unite churches all around the country in singing these songs of truth, as well as encouraging the same creative spirit that led to this groundbreaking debut project.

To hear "Every Call" the first release from the album, click here. Freedom's Tree will be available for pre-order from 6th September and the official release date is 6th October.

 

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