Steve Bell's New Worship Album

Throughout my career, folks have told me that there is a consistent theme or quality of worship to the music I record - so I suppose it should not be surprising that I would eventually release an album that is deliberately and self consciously a "worship album." And this new one, Devotion, would be it. After last year's gargantuan effort to produce the Symphony CD and tour (which was wonderfully received - thank you) I thought, we all thought, I'd take a break and lay low for awhile. However, there has been a growing body of new, contemplative worship songs sung at my home church in Winnipeg (www.stbenedictstable.ca) that has been deeply nourishing while at the same time creating in me a compelling sense that they needed to be recorded. So in January, still somewhat wearied from the previous year, I showed up in Vancouver at the doorstep of producer Roy Salmond with a pocket full of songs and no real idea how best to proceed. Over the course of the next several months Roy and I pursued and developed a creative rapport that has resulted in what I think is a wonderful, accessible and fresh collection of simple song-prayers offered with respect to the same liturgical arc of worship that feeds us week after week, year after year, century after century. One never knows till after the fact if one's goals have been achieved, but I hope this album will stand on it's own as a listenable work while at the same time effecting worship of the ineffable God whose beauty is arresting and whose wisdom and love are inexhaustible.