|
This week acclaimed singer/songwriter John Mark McMillan released his first independent project, Borderland (Lionhawk Records), to much acclaim from fans and media alike. Borderland was funded solely by a Kickstarter campaign with close to 70,000 raised and more than 1,500 contributors. The album debuted and remains at No. 1 on the iTunes Christian and Gospel chart and continues to hold a Top 15 slot in the iTunes Overall Albums chart this week.
"All of my albums have been special, but there is something extra special about this one," shares John Mark McMillan on his release day. "I think it's because it's much more of a community project than any album we've done before. Through fans' Kickstarter contribution and the way our local community of musicians & artists rallied around this project really blew my mind! I am proud of this album for many reasons but especially because I believe the sound you hear is not the sound of John Mark McMillan but the sound of my friends and I doing what we love!"
John Mark McMillan will head out on his spring tour, 'Are We All Animals Tour', supporting his album, kicking off March 29 in Orlando, FL. Singer/songwriter Brady Toops will also open during select dates in the southeast. Official tour dates are listed below.
To create the genre-bending Borderland, McMillan returned to the studio in rural North Carolina where he created much of his first two albums. He and producer Elijah Mosely spent a year out in the woods, an hour outside McMillan's native Charlotte, patiently and intensely crafting an album that would do justice to the songs that McMillan brought to the table. Dispensing with much of the folk and the rock n' roll that informed his earlier work, McMillan opened up his palette to include deep grooves and arena-filling sounds. Drawing inspiration from the likes of Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds and 80's era-Springsteen, McMillan and Mosley stripped the songs to their bare essence, building them back from the foundation one element at a time. As a result, the songs really display the strength of McMillan's voice.
"This album is about life between the crevices, about life on the verge," McMillan explains. "The literal concept of borderland is that it's that space in between spaces...we all walk these lines between work and family, passion and responsibility, art and commerce. We all feel these pressures-and it's where I've been living as a person, as an artist and as a believer. I think Borderland speaks to my experience living in that thin space."
McMillan's song "How He Loves" was recently listed by Integrity Music as one of the 25 most influential worship songs in the past 25 years and still today ranks on CCLI's Top 25 chart. John Mark McMillan is proud to be an ambassador for World Vision and an advocate for its work in Bahkari, India.
Are We All Animals Spring 2014 Tour dates:
3/29 Orlando, FL
3/30 Miami, FL
3/31 Bradenton, FL
4/02 Tallahassee, FL
4/03 Pensacola, FL
4/04 Monroe, GA
4/05 Rainbow City, AL
4/06 Oxford, MS
4/08 Nashville, TN
4/09 Campbellsville, KY
4/10 Knoxville, TN
4/20 Kalispell, MT
5/07 Richmond, VA
5/08 Vienna, VA
5/09 Manheim, PA
5/12 New York City, NY
6/20 Spokane, WA
|
