The brand new album by Nigel & Julie

inspired at home during lockdown 2020

' H   O   M   E '

"One of the greatest Celtic-flavoured projects ever... A captivating album... which deserves to be heard by the worldwide worshipping church." 5/5 Premier Christianity

Album Promo Video :

We are excited to have world class guitarist and musician Dave Bainbridge joining us again

on a number of songs, also a huge musical contribution from fingerstyle guitarist Phil Hart on his beautiful Lowden guitar and Epiphany who provide a string arrangement for one of the songs.

OUT NOW ON CD: 

ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS : 

Lyric Videos :

Album Artwork :

Download PDFs

Reviews

J O A N N E   H O G G

P R E M I E R   C H R I S T I A N I T Y

C H R I S   B O W A T E R 

Considered to be a Father of the modern worship movement. Writer of songs “Here I am Wholly Available” and “Jesus shall take the highest honour”  

S T U A R T   T O W N E N D

Internationally renowned worship-leader and songwriter

Writer of songs like 'In Christ Alone' and 'How Deep the Father's Love'

R O B I N   M A R K 

Worship-leader from Nigel's 'HOME' town of Belfast. Writer of songs like 'These are the Days of Elijah' and 'Jesus All for Jesus'

D A V I D   C O L E  (Brother Cassian) 

Executive Director, Waymark Ministries

UK Deputy Guardian, The Community of Aidan & Hilda

R I C H A R D   J A C K S O N 

Bishop of Hereford

J O N A T H A N   R E A 

Creative Director, New Irish Arts

D A V E   W H I T C R O F T

KDMusic, Belfast

BACKGROUND

Although all our concerts and events were cancelled during lockdown, and much of our income stopped, we have both felt blessed by the gift of time for creativity and the inspiration came for a new season of songwriting. Very soon the themes and shape of a new album concept merged, and we are excited to announce the title of this new project as ‘Celtish Home’.

Through some miraculous and timely provision, we were able to start recording in July and since then have felt an urgency and acceleration in the creative process, confirming to us that God had opened this door and His Holy Spirit is guiding, inspiring and preparing the way for this music to be released.   

Songs

 Here is a summary of some of the key songs and themes for this album:

Psalm 27 (The Lord is my Light)    

 Nigel was drawn to this Psalm quite early on during lockdown and set it to a beautiful Celtic melody called ‘Women of Ireland’. The words of the psalm seem more relevant than ever when we all need to know that “The Lord is the stronghold of my life—So why should I even be afraid?”. Then we couldn’t resist doing something joyful and rhythmic with the powerful declaration “I will sing and make music to the Lord with shouts of joy. In this land I will see the goodness of the Lord.”

Darkest Day (Julie’s Dream)

 For some time now we have felt burdened to speak into the issue of the sanctity of life and the rights of the unborn but also to bring comfort and healing to those who have lost children through abortion or miscarriage.  Quite some time ago Julie had a very vivid dream where she was in heaven with a group of enthusiastic young children who were asking her if she knew their mommies. It was clear in the dream that these were children who had never been born but they wanted to sing a blessing for their parents. We have told the story of this dream in a song which we pray will bring hope and healing to those affected by the issue but will also be a powerful cry for justice for the unborn. “He who formed them in the secret place. He can see them through the darkest day.”

The Great Reunion

 We have had another wonderful opportunity to collaborate with fingerstyle guitarist Phil Hart from Belfast. For a few years now he has been working on some new instrumental compositions but was more than willing to explore the idea that lyrics could be added to some of his beautiful music. Nigel has taken several scripture passages on the theme of heaven and weaved them with Phil’s melodies, so successfully, that when Phil heard the lyrics sung to his music for the first time, he was moved to tears. It just seemed like this was a divinely inspired collaboration!  Following on from the ‘Darkest Day’ song with instrumental passages, Parts I-III of ‘Great Reunion’ that we have called ‘Healing’, ‘Hope’ and ‘Home’, we believe this sequence will be very powerful indeed.

Celtic Saints

 On our last album ‘Celtish Devotion’ we honoured the stories of two Celtic Saints, Brendan & Patrick. For this new project we were inspired by prayers attributed to Aidan of Lindisfarne and Columba of Iona.

Julie has written a beautifully haunting melody for the Prayer of Aidan and Nigel has cleverly set the Prayer of Columba to the traditional hymn tune St. Columba.  A recurring theme from these early Celtic Christians is the practice of solitude, yet we learn that each were called from their solitude to plant thriving communities in turn impacting many nations with the gospel. These stories seem more relevant than ever as we all seek to emerge from what felt like a period of solitude.

Traditional Hymns

 There will also be some traditional hymns on the album which will have the full ‘Celtish’ treatment, including ‘In Heavenly Love Abiding’ set to the Irish ballad ‘Raglan Road’; ‘My Jesus I Love Thee’ to the beautiful folk melody ‘The Meeting of the Waters’ and  ‘Beautiful Home’ set to a melody by Phil Hart.