Praise continues to pour in for new studio album, Ctrl

Webb’s fall tour in support of album set to visit multiple major markets

On the heels of the acclaimed release of his latest studio album, Ctrl, indie pioneer Derek Webb has enjoyed seeing the project crown the Amazon Singer-Songwriter Albums chart, where it peaked in the top spot, as well as the No. 7 position on the overall Alternative chart, just behind Mumford & Sons. In addition to the success of Ctrl, all of Webb’s previous efforts—Feedback, Mockingbird, Stockholm Syndrome, I See Things Upside Down, She Must and Shall Go Free, The Ringing Bell, The House Show—jumped into the Top 50 on the Amazon Christian & Gospel Albums chart.

Webb officially unveiled Ctrl on Sept. 4 to stellar reviews and remarkable praise from critics. In addition, the album made its chart debut in the Top 10 on the Christian Soundscan chart.

With Ctrl, Webb breaks new ground sonically with his combination of nylon-string acoustic guitar, Sacred Harp recordings, and hyper-personal lyrics framed in a fictional narrative of his own writing. The combination of these unique musical elements colors a sonic landscape and supports a lyrical palette that Webb painstakingly crafted along with collaborators Josh Moore (co-producer of Ctrl, along with Webb’s Stockholm Syndrome and Feedback albums) and Allan Heinberg (Writer/Executive Producer of Grey’s Anatomy, 2006-2010). Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that took root in the Southern region of the United States and is part of the larger tradition of shape note singing. Webb interweaves recordings of the four-part harmony, historic, American art form into his compositions on the 10-track album.

Here’s just a slice of some of the latest praise for Ctrl:

“Morally challenging and musically innovative, Derek Webb takes yet another bold step with Ctrl…”
—iTunes

“Ctrl is ultimately a surprising, perplexing, and overall redemptive piece of art.”
—Jesus Freak Hideout

“Derek Webb delivers a dense, eye-opening masterpiece…”
—Stereo Subversion

“Webb has crossed the labyrinth of songs with a message by providing a story where the listener takes a meaningful, inward journey. Like standing up a mirror for each of us to see inside ourselves, [Ctrl] has done what few Christian offerings have managed to do in the past. Webb has created a tool for us to use for our spiritual self-improvement.”
—The Phantom Tollbooth

Webb is on tour throughout the fall to promote Ctrl, visiting markets including Atlanta, Kansas City and Chicago before wrapping in Richmond, VA, on Nov. 16. Boulder-based indie trio Page CXVI is supporting Webb on tour. For full tour information, please visit www.DerekWebb.com/tour.
About Derek Webb
Once called “the most dangerous man in the music business,” Derek Webb’s career, spanning more than 20 years including his tenure in Texas-based folk/rock band Caedmon’s Call, has seen album sales over one million records, 10 Dove Award nominations, a Billboard Music Video Award nod and six No. 1 radio hits. Webb’s innovative music marketing and distribution strategies (including the founding of NoiseTrade.com) have received national news coverage in USA Today, the LA Times and more.

[Get Connected with Derek Webb]
Web site // www.derekwebb.com
Facebook // www.facebook.com/derekwebb
Twitter // www.twitter.com/derekwebb

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Media Contact:
Jess Draper
the media collective
jess@themcollective.com
615.591.7989
www.themcollective.com

Nashville, Tenn. — Perennial critical favorite Derek Webb officially unveiled his latest studio album, Ctrl, on Sept. 4 to stellar reviews and remarkable praise from critics. In addition, the album made its chart debut in the Top 10 on the Christian Soundscan chart.

With Ctrl, Webb breaks new ground sonically with his combination of nylon-string acoustic guitar, Sacred Harp recordings, and hyper-personal lyrics framed in a fictional narrative of his own writing. The combination of these unique musical elements colors a sonic landscape and supports a lyrical palette that Webb painstakingly crafted along with collaborators Josh Moore (Co-producer of Ctrl, along with Webb’s Stockholm Syndrome and Feedback albums) and Allan Heinberg (Writer/Executive Producer of Grey’s Anatomy, 2006-2010). Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that took root in the Southern region of the United States and is part of the larger tradition of shape note singing. Webb interweaves recordings of the four-part harmony, historic, American art form into his compositions on the 10-track album.

Here’s just a sampling of the overwhelming praise for Ctrl:

“Extraordinary and original songwriting that comes together in surprising ways. At points, it’s as minimalist as PJ Harvey’s White Chalk, and at other points, it’s as lush as any Sufjan Stevens album. It’s eccentric at all points in between, but wonderfully so.”
New York Minute Magazine

“He has a gifted ear for melody and language, and in these songs he’s stripped his songwriting down to those essentials…the tension between straightforward, grounded songs and sonic experimentation is what makes the album work. This album is meant to be probed, explored, wrestled with.
Relevant

“Webb’s strength is his refusal to shy away from the tension and ambiguity between real and synthetic, pure and toxic, spiritual and physical—life and death.”
Christianity Today

“Melodic, atmospheric and as mellow as anything he’s ever done, Ctrl seems to simultaneously show Derek at his most comfortable and his most uncomfortable. There’s an amazing confidence in his arrangements, production and melodies, especially in the deceptively simplistic, sparser moments. Ctrl contains a treasure trove of musicality, ingenuity, honesty, questions, resolutions and much more. No matter your personal level of interaction with Derek’s music, Ctrl stands on its own merit, delivering amazing musical performances, mind-thumping questions and Derek’s crystal clear, unmistakable vocals. Amazing on its own and possibly more than meets the eye when paired with the NEXUS soundtrack, Ctrl is absolutely worth your time and attention.”
NoiseTrade

“Ctrl is pretty much unlike anything else you’ll hear this year. It’s unique, haunting, and thought provoking … truly deep and artistic, something greater than can be understood in a single sitting, and thus something that will have to be played again.”
New Release Tuesday

“[This album is] one that begs you to absorb and take it in. Derek has defined himself as an artist and not just a songwriter.”
Faith Village

About Derek Webb
Once called “the most dangerous man in the music business”, Derek Webb’s career, spanning more than 20 years including his tenure in Texas-based folk/rock band Caedmon’s Call, has seen album sales over one million records, 10 Dove Award nominations, a Billboard Music Video Award nod and six No. 1 radio hits. Webb’s innovative music marketing and distribution strategies (including the founding of NoiseTrade.com) have received national news coverage in USA Today, the LA Times and more.

[Get Connected with Derek Webb]
www.derekwebb.com
www.facebook.com/derekwebb
twitter.com/derekwebb

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Media Contact:
Velvet Kelm and Jess Draper
the media collective
velvet@themcollective.com
jess@themcollective.com
615.591.7989
www.themcollective.com

Like Neil Young and Rich Mullins before him, Derek Webb has matured into a fearless artist who delights in betraying expectations, and making art that explores detours, departures and roads less traveled. Take his latest album, Ctrl, which features Webb picking up his acoustic guitar after a long layoff from the instrument. For Webb fans who know and love his past work with Caedmon’s Call, his return to unplugged sounds should come as welcome news: They adore this latest record from start to finish.

That said, you’d better brace yourself. On Ctrl, Webb places his acoustic axe in the service of his most ambitious project to date. It tells the tale of an unnamed character that melts the lines of physical and virtual realities until it’s hard to tell man from machine, the digits from the DNA. Yet the emerging story is so much Webb’s, fans can be forgiven for mistaking this work for a 21st century confessional.

Ctrl at turns sounds terrifying and tight, soulful and transcendent. The magic comes as a direct result of Webb pitting primitive, organic sounds against programmed, looped textures as his character sinks further into his dystopian fever dream. “The juxtaposition of primitive and future was part of the basic framework from the beginning,” Webb says.

To that end, Webb makes abundant use of Sacred Harp singing (also known as shape note singing), a form of acapella choral music that took root in the American south. But he morphs those four-part harmony singers into digitized samples that take on the tremulous quality of ghosts without a home.

Webb’s singing also adds to the emotional wallop, as he tried something else brand new: He sang all the songs on the album, in their exact album sequence, in one 36-hour stretch. The exhaustion you hear by the closing track is real, and it reflects the fray he felt as his vocal cords began to splinter.

“The 36 hours included six hours of sleep, so you get a sense of the journey I’m going on and the exhaustion I’m feeling. That was just another way of burying meaning; the character at the end is exhausted and has been on a journey. I felt more connected to the content of the songs through that experience.”

Webb enjoys the fact that Ctrl, with its futuristic sound and shape, also marks a homecoming for longtime listeners who’ve stayed away for a while.

“I’m already hearing from folks online who felt alienated by the last few records, and they seem to really love this one,” Webb says. “So this is an opportunity for people who jumped ship somewhere along the way to find a way back on board.

Click on the grey button at the bottom of the page to get a FREE DOWNLOAD of Derek’s song “Reanimate” from the new record, and pick up the album at your favorite store today!

New Album In Stores Now

Click here to preview the record & get your copy!
www.DerekWebb.com

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Congratulations to our winner Adam!

Derek Webb’s highly anticipated release, “Ctrl,” hits stores today, and we’re excited to get to share it with you! Every album  he puts out is completely different than the one before, and this one is no exception.

Here’s how Derek explains it:

“It’s an album about one man’s desire for something he cannot have because it isn’t real, the journey he goes on pursuing it, and the costs of that journey. But essentially, ‘Ctrl’ is both personal autopsy and cultural observation about how we use technology to try and control our lives, and my concern that it could ultimately have more control of us. It’s easily my most personal record, which is why it had to be written inside a fictional narrative. In fact, it’s fiercely personal. I’m an early adopter of every new technology that comes down the pike. My own inability to put it down, to have rules and say no to it concerns me. But it’s just as much cultural criticism. If you look around, you’ve got whole families walking around, bumping into each other, because they’re all staring into little screens.”

To bring his thesis to life, Webb constructed Ctrl like a play divided into three acts. “I’ve never made an album like this before — an album built entirely around a story,” he says. It took him more than two years to plan and research, whereas recording it was a sprint. Once Webb entered the studio, Ctrl was cut in four days, mixed in five, then mastered and shipped off for pressing before his record label even had a chance to hear the finished product. The album came out so quickly, in fact, Webb hadn’t fully digested what he’d created before he received a copy himself.

“The day it came out, I remember my throat still felt sore from singing the last vocal,” Webb says. “That’s how close to it we were. We had no time to obsess or second-guess or go back and fix things. There just wasn’t time. We would try and get great performances, and move on. I was just as surprised at the resulting sound as anyone, and I’m still getting familiar with it.”

Stream the full album above to hear the music for yourself, and let us know what you think. Leave a comment with your favorite track and ENTER TO WIN a copy of the record! Check back next week to learn more about it and get a free download!

Click here to get your copy on iTunes now!
www.DerekWebb.com

Webb breaks new ground sonically with his combination of nylon-string acoustic guitar, Sacred Harp recordings, and hyper-personal lyrics framed in a fictional narrative of his own writing

Critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Derek Webb will officially release, Ctrl, the highly anticipated follow up to 2009’s Stockholm Syndrome, on September 4, 2012 via Fair Trade Services. However, the always fan community-minded Webb has already made the album available in its entirety on his website, derekwebb.com.

“Ctrl is based on a story I wrote with two of my closest friends, Josh Moore (Co-producer of Ctrl, along with Webb’s Stockholm Syndrome, and Feedback albums) and Allan Heinberg (Writer/Executive Producer of Grey’s Anatomy, 2006-2010),” says Webb. “It’s an album about one man’s desire for something he cannot have because it isn’t real, the journey he goes on pursuing it, and the costs of that journey. But essentially, Ctrl is both personal autopsy and cultural observation about how we use technology to try and control our lives, and my concern that it could ultimately have more control of us.”

Characterized by nylon-string guitar, drum machines and Sacred Harp recordings, Ctrl combines these unique musical elements to color a sonic landscape and support a lyrical palette that Webb painstakingly crafted along with collaborators Moore and Heinberg. Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that took root in the Southern region of the United States and is part of the larger tradition of shape note singing. Webb interweaves recordings of the four-part harmony, historic, American art form into his compositions on the 10-track album.

Although it’s only been available for a week, Ctrl already has everyone talking, returning rave reviews from fans, blogs & publications alike, exemplified by these excerpts from RELEVANT magazine’s glowing review:

Rating: 9/10

“A startling…musical conversation that spans three centuries.”

“The clash of sounds–the very old with the very new–hit me in the gut.”

“This album is meant to be probed, explored, wrestled with.”

Ctrl Track Listing:

1. And See The Flaming Skies
2. A City With No Name
3. Can’t Sleep
4. Blocks
5. Pressing On The Bruise
6. Attonitos Gloria
7. I Feel Everything
8. Reanimate
9. A Real Ghost
10. Around Every Corner

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About Derek Webb

Once called “the most dangerous man in the music business”, Derek Webb’s career, spanning more than 20 years including his tenure in Texas-based folk/rock band Caedmon’s Call, has seen album sales over one million records, 10 Dove Award nominations, a Billboard Music Video Award nod and six No. 1 radio hits. Webb’s innovative music marketing and distribution strategies (including the founding of NoiseTrade.com) have received national news coverage in USA Today, the LA Times and more.

[Get Connected with Derek Webb]:

www.derekwebb.com
www.facebook.com/derekwebb
twitter.com/derekwebb

Media Contact:

Velvet Kelm and Jess Draper
the media collective
velvet@themcollective.com
jess@themcollective.com
615.591.7989
www.themcollective.com

Derek Webb-mixed Project Precedes Lullaby Hymns Album Slated for Fall 2012

April 30, 2012: After recording four Hymns albums, one-of-a-kind trio Page CXVI is releasing a remix record, re:hymns, taking fan favorites and recreating their already unique spin on hymns into fun, new artistic expressions. Consisting of band members Reid and Latifah Phillips and Dann Stockton, Page CXVI presents a new way to understand the role of hymns for the modern listener. The record, remixed by singer-songwriter Derek Webb, is scheduled for release on June 12^th.  The band is also currently working on an album of lullaby hymns, set for release this coming autumn.

“I have admired Page CXVI for years and was thrilled to get a call from them about a collaboration,” states Webb. “I was even more thrilled at their desire for experimentation and disruption. And once I heard Latifah’s voice and the band’s soaring melodies over the non-organic and electronic elements we were playing with, I wondered if they might have missed their calling. It takes truly great songs to work so beautifully and believably over such diverse arrangements. And that’s what these are.”

The band’s three members—Latifah Phillips and husband Reid and Dann Stockton—came to love hymns independently, even before they came together as the band The Autumn Film. A few years into touring as The Autumn Film and leading worship and churches around the country, the band could not deny the strong beckoning of the hymns and decided to develop a parallel band, another side of the same coin: the same people but a new purpose, catalog, and name, Page CXVI. The somewhat cryptic name was drawn from the page number in a particular copy of The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis, in the passage where Aslan begins to sing Narnia into creation out of a black void.

The group’s overnight success began when they recorded their first Hymns collection. After deciding to give the album away online, sending emails to around 60 friends to spread the word, John Piper’s blog, “Desiring God,” posted a free download, turning in 12,000 downloads in only two days. The group has since recorded four Hymns albums and toured nationwide.

http://pagecxvi.com/
http://www.facebook.com/PageCXVI
https://twitter.com/#!/pagecxvi

About Page CXVI:

After forming the group, The Autumn Film, band members Reid and Latifah Phillips and Dann Stockton were leading worship at churches and could not deny the strong beckoning of the hymns. They decided to develop a parallel band; the same people but a new purpose of making hymns accessible again under the new name, Page CXVI. The somewhat cryptic name was intentional. It’s drawn from the page number in a particular copy of The Magician’s Nephew by C.S. Lewis, the brilliant passage where Aslan begins to sing Narnia into creation out of a black void. Since the formation of this new project, the band has recorded four Hymns albums and have toured “just about every state.” Page CXVI also has a lullaby album of hymns that will be released this coming fall.

About Derek Webb:

A former member of the Houston, Texas-based Caedmon’s Call, singer-songwriter Derek Webb has seen career sales approaching one million records, 10 Dove Award nominations, a Billboard Music Video Award nod and six No.1 radio hits. Webb’s innovative music marketing and distribution strategies have received national news coverage in USA Today and the Los Angeles Times.

Media Contact:

Velvet Kelm or Brian Issac
the media collective
velvet@theMcollective.com
brian@theMcollective.com
615.591.7989
www.theMcollective.com

Self-Sabotage: the deliberate subversion of oneself. Destructive or obstructive action that hinders the person who acts. See also: The Lord’s Prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer is inherently violent towards the one who prays it. Self-Sabotage is an exploration of the Lord’s Prayer based on and inspired by Derek Webb’s electronic all instrumental album ‘Feedback’. It follows six characters in a narrative with no words – only the music to parallel the stories. Their lives, like moving icons, open windows into the great mystery of communion through self-dethroning sabotage.

Download the film for just $5.00 now at DerekWebb.com, and check out a preview below!

Derek Webb’s new instrumental worship album, “Feedback,” is available everywhere this week, and he sat down to give us some insight about the first track. As you may have heard, the album is based around “The Lord’s Prayer” and features a track for each line. Scroll down to see what he had to say about line 1, “Our Father In Heaven,” and download the song for free. You can also go here to learn more about the concept behind the album, and how it came about.

Get your copy now on iTunes or DerekWebb.com for extras.

“OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN”
by Derek Webb

The Lord’s Prayer is misunderstood. It’s mystical. But – it’s also foundational and informative. Ultimately – it’s our “feedback” to God. If you include “Amen”, there are nine lines of The Lord’s Prayer. The first line – “Our Father In Heaven” – starts the prayer out with a real bang. You imagine people in the first century hearing this instruction to approach God as “Father.” None of the prophets EVER had talked about addressing God as “Father.” Remember, this is the God who – if you gave the wrong offering or sacrifice – could strike you dead. To address God as “Father” was a revolution in and of itself.

OUR.

Every word in this first line of the prayer is important. First, we now see God as OUR Father. It’s not personal – meaning, it’s not just me in my closet by myself where it’s private and just a thing between God and me. It’s OUR Father – actually, it’s ALWAYS our Father – so, it’s something that we all do TOGETHER.

FATHER.

Again, for the first century Jews, to address God as “Father” – to address Him so personally – was a mind-blowing concept. The fact that He’s our Father implies an intimate relationship.

IN HEAVEN.

Yet, our Father is in Heaven – which is this other world that we don’t know much about – we don’t even know where this world is. So, this line is the imminent and transcendent. It’s corporate, personal, and it’s other worldly – ALL in this paradoxical opening line. This line serves to immediately orient us in terms of to whom we are Speaking – our Father.

As you may have heard, Caedmon’s Call has been working hard on a new record, and it’s coming your way very soon! The album is called “Raising Up The Dead”  and the band has decided to give away 2 brand new songs through NoiseTrade- visit their shiny new website Caedmonscall.com to check it out now!

Raising Up The Dead / Coming Summer 2010 from Caedmon’s Call on Vimeo.

Summer is the best time of the year; school’s out, we get to go on fun vacations, there’s outdoor movies in the park and fruit just tastes better.

I don’t know about you guys, but I love having a new music for the summer. There are certain songs I listened to for the first time during a summer that now whenever I hear it, I associate that song with that summer of my life. Isn’t that cool how music has the power to do that?

FreeCCM wants to help you do that too, so were giving away EVERY CD IN OUR CLOSET! That’s like over 50 CDs, all you gotta do is be on our email list (sign up here) and you’re eligible to win. You can read more about it here.

And if you’ve been busy finishing the last season of Lost dvds, or maybe you’ve been in line the last few weeks for the new iPhone and you haven’t had time to see what going on in the world. No worries, keep enjoying summer because we’ve got you covered. Some of our favorite artists have been enjoying their summers and we want you to know what their up to!

Take a look at their whereabouts and let us know who you think is having the best summer.

Bart Millard from MercyMe has been shopping for a new dining room table.	Michael from Building 429 hasn’t had time to go grocery shopping, so he figured he could just grab a couple fish from the pond to eat.
Derek Webb has been making homemade popsicles, which they naturally call “Rocksicles.”	Skillet figured since they didn’t have time to shoot fireworks off  this weekend that they would just light them off during their show last night.

BTW: You may be thinking this sounds nothing like Laura or Rachel. And that’s cause your right! My name it Tyler and I’m the new intern here at FreeCCM. I’ll be posting every now and then and try to keep you guys up to date with what all our favorite artist are up to. If you have anything you want me to write about that you’ve been afraid to ask Laura or Rachel the “real bloggers” about, drop a comment and I’ll come up with an answer for ya. Sic ‘em Bears.