About Mike Cartwright
Currently listening: David Crowder Band – Church Music
This new self produced album from David Crowder Band, sees the band reverse the ideals of their previous album Remedy.
Remedy took the music of the church and took it into a more mainstream setting. Church Music takes the combined sound of the mainstream clubs and the lyrics of a worshiper and brings it into a Church setting. Having played Frenzy 09 and Fuel 09, David Crowder Band are already booked to return to UK for more dates in May 2010.
Writer of ‘Oh Praise Him’, ‘He Is Our King’ and ‘Everything Glorious’, David Crowder*Band are part of the Passion Movement in the US.
Just got my hands on this CD recently and I have to say it does not dissapoint from 1st listen. 17 tracks cleverly mixed together without breaks and pauses. Highlight so far is track 10. How he loves.
Picasa 3.5 released – with face recognition.
When it comes to sorting out pics I’ve always been ademant that whatever program I use it needs to be easy and straight forward and after trying so many different programs I finally settled for Google’s Picasa. I have to say that right from the early stages of Picasa’s life the software did exactly what it was set out to do in a very straight forward kind of way and just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, the latest release comes with some very interesting features.
- Name tags – scans all the photos in your collection, identifies the ones with faces, and groups photos with similar faces together.
- Geotag your photos with Google Maps – Quickly add geotags using new integrated Google Maps
- Import, upload, and share, all at once – improved the import process so that you can star your favorites, upload to Picasa Web Albums and share with Google contact groups at the same time
- Tags — Better bulk tagging, quick tags & tag counts – improved the tagging experience.
I installed the new version 3.5 yesterday and I loved the new features. See below for a little video explaining the new features and you can download picasa from http://picasa.google.co.uk/
Quiet times – Mike C is on holiday
Hey guys just to let you know that I haven’t forgotten to blog, it’s just that I’m currently on holiday and not very connected. 🙂 Anyway when I get back next week there should be a few updates for you all to enjoy. See you all soon.
Mike
SUMMER SALE @ CROSS RHYTHMS – CDs £9.97 or less!
I like buying CDs a lot and this week I bought 3 CDs from Cross Rhythms thanks to their excellent Summer Sale. There’s nowhere at the moment which is cheaper so make the most of it before it ends!
http://direct.crossrhythms.co.uk/
Currently listening: Matt Redman – We Shall Not Be Shaken
It was about 2 months ago that I read this review on LouderThanTheMusic.com and after they gave it a 5/5 for this CD I decided that I should pre-order it. It finally arrived this week and my initial opinion after a listen is that it’s a good CD but it didn’t blow me away to deserve a 5/5. Here’s the blurb (take from Cross Rhythms website):
Matt Redman’s songs are sung in congregations every Sunday across the world, with songs such as ‘Blessed Be Your Name’, ‘Facedown’, ‘Never Let Go’ and more recently ‘You Alone Can Rescue’ amongst many others.
This September sees the release of Matt’s brand new studio album ‘We Shall Not Be Shaken’ produced by Robert Marvin who produced Matt’s previous album ‘Beautiful News’. The new album features co-writes with Jonas Myrin (Hillsongs) and is a collection of congregational songs that will inspire the local church across the world.
Matt now resides in Atlanta USA where he is part of the Passion Church plant alongside Louie Giglio and Chris Tomlin. This year Matt received ASCAP Awards for Christian songwriter of the year and for the most played songs on Christian radio in the USA for ‘Blessed Be Your Name’ and ‘Never Let Go’.
This is the 3rd CD I’m listening to at the moment, so who knows which review will be done 1st 🙂
Currently listening: Ben Cantelon – Running After You
Another CD just arrived in the post today which I have to admit I’ve been looking forward to!
A worship album from this Soul Survivor and Holy Trinity Brompton worship leader.
Writer of ‘Love Came Down’, ‘You Are’ and co-writer of ‘Happy Day’ with Tim Hughes, Ben Cantelon is the worship director for Soul Survivor, a role which takes him all over the world. But it’s not the physical miles that have inspired Running After You, his debut full length album due for release this coming August, Ben’s captivated by a deeper, more personal journey: one that takes us away from ‘business as usual’ and closer to God himself.
With producer Dwayne Larring (Sonic Flood, Tim Hughes), Ben on acoustic guitars and keyboards as well as other musicians including Michael Guy Chislet (Hillsong United) on electric guitars, Running After You has the breadth and force to inspire people and take their journey a few steps further.
‘Running After You links in with the idea of being desperate to follow and connect with God; wanting God to get closer but life getting in the way. So this is a real journey album – full of songs of total praise, lament and confusion, trial and hardship.’ – Ben Cantelon
Once again watch this space for a review!
Currently listening: Godfrey Birtill (2009) – Hijacked into Paradise
Got this in the post last week and I’m listening to it everywhere I go. Here’s a quote from Godfrey’s site:
“Another historic night in the story of the rising revival in the UK. GB is a prophetic song writer who captures in music a snapshot of what is going on in the church and the nation. His latest album “Hijacked into Paradise” just burns with the Spirit of glory, the joy and the wild fire. Many of us came from all over the UK to support this album recording night! It was a mixture of drunken joy, pirates, crazies and the hungry! GB is a legend!” – Emerge Wales
If you’re interested in listening to some samples then head over to Godfrey’s site – www.godfreyb.com. Links to download chords & lyrics are available there too.
You can also listen to a few songs in full on Godfrey’s MySpace page.
Watch this space for a full review in a week or so.
The end of Delirious? – The press release
We would like to address all our fans, our friends and people around the world who have faithfully supported Delirious?After 14 albums, thousands of shows in front of millions of people, and many extraordinary memories, we have decided that at the end of 2009 we will take a break from recording and playing as a band.Our decision was triggered by a request from Martin to be released from the band to pursue new projects including his work with CompassionArt and the desire to be at home more with Anna and his children. We have of course honoured this request and made a decision together that now is the time to end this chapter of our lives.We will continue to play and be excited about our current tours and bookings but will not be adding many more over the coming 17 months..We are all so deeply grateful to our incredible fans who have sung the songs and allowed Delirious? the privilege of providing the soundtrack to many lives over the years. From the school hall in Littlehampton to the stadiums of the world we have many stories to tell our children’s children. Delirious also would not be what it is without our amazing wives and families, and our gratitude to them is immense. We will now move forward to the next part of our lives where new challenges unfold and greater stories will be written.We want to make it absolutely clear that although this decision has been extremely painful and difficult, we are still great friends and our respect for each other is unquestionable. We love playing in this band together and know that even though 2009 will bring an end to this current journey, there will be more adventures together in years to come.We always used to say that we were ‘taking it wherever it goes’. The music ended up going further and deeper than we could ever have dreamed, yet we are now at a point where our creative futures will spread out and take on different journeys.Thanks again for believing in us through all these years. We believe the best is yet to come.Jon, Martin, Paul, Stu G and Tim