New music from Rivers & Robots

After a successful Kickstarter campaign, and a few months of recording, mixing and mastering, we've put the finishing touches to the new Rivers & Robots album, The Eternal Son. It's going to be our first release on Vinyl, and we really went the extra mile in the recording process this time around. A highlight of ours was definitely spending a few days with our friend Jonny Bird in Martin Smith's studio, recording electric guitars. Jonny helped us to get the best tones out of the the parts we played, and we're really with how it's come out.

Take a look at the trailer for the album, which will be released this month on the 20th May.

We also released the first single from the album, called Wait For You. Which is available to stream via soundcloud.

We'll be sharing some more about the album soon, but in the meantime, help us spread the word about the upcoming release! The album is also available to pre-order on digital, CD or Vinyl from our bandcamp page.

The Eternal Son Album Recording

Week 1

On New Years Day we began work on the Drums! We spent the first three days of the year recording drum tracks with Kelani at Noiseboys Studio in Salford. They were very packed days with only small breaks for KFC Chicken and cups of tea!

Throughout recording the drums tracks we were also involved in a prayer and worship event called Unite 24. It was great to join with churches across our city for 24 hours of non-stop worship, it was great knowing that worship was happening the whole way through the recording process!

Week 2

During the second week we moved base to Dan Stirling’s home studio where he mixed the drum recordings and we laid down tracks for the bass guitar and bass synth.

A personal highlight happened when we bumped into two street preachers who had recently met Jesus whilst in rehab from Heroine addiction! It was very encouraging to have them pray for the recording with us on the street - especially because we felt that God was saying this album will be used to bring freedom into people lives!

Week 3

The third week was mainly about guitars as Jonathan & David recorded all the acoustic guitars. We also spent some time at the Upper Room Church in Altrincham recording grand piano in their main hall.

Towards the end of the week we were also joined by our good friends Cat Davis and Dan White who bought some Cello and Sax goodness on a couple of our songs!

Week 4

Week four was all about the vocals, and we underwent withdrawal symptoms as we refrained from our usual morning coffees and did our vocal exercises! Dan’s cat seemed pretty blown away by our vocal prowess as documented in this video!

At the end of the week our friend Elizabeth Bhatia also joined us to sing the higher harmonies we couldn’t reach and we recorded group vocals with friends at Mount Chapel in Salford, Manchester.

Week 5

The final week has been a mixing week for Dan as he sorts out the tracks ready for when we travel over to Brighton, to record electric guitars with Jonny Bird!

Thanks to everyone who has prayed and encouraged us throughout the process! Big thanks to Dan’s wife Georgina for letting us take over their house for a few weeks! And thanks to everyone who came over to help us with the groups vocals!

We are really looking forward to when the songs are finished and out! We believe these are some of the best songs we’ve ever written and can’t wait to share them with the world!

Psalm 100

“Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before Him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and praise His name. For the Lord is good and His love endures for ever; His faithfulness continues through all generations.” 

- Psalm 100

Often life has a way of taking us away from the simplicity of who we are and who God is; this could be current circumstances, trials, worries, temptations or often just the busyness of life. Before we know it we allow the noise of life to drown out the quietness and peace that comes from spending time in the presence of God. It's very easy to be drawn away from the joy of sitting at the feet of our Creator and gazing in the face of our Father God!

In the New Testament there's a great picture of this when Jesus called Peter to climb out of the boat and walk towards Jesus. Everything was fine when he kept his focus on Jesus who had just called him out; but as he began to walk he became distracted by the size and noise of the waves surrounding him. While our eyes our fixed on Him we can walk on top of the waves, but when we turn our gaze away from Him that's when we start to sink.

Psalm 100 shows us something about what it means to worship the Lord. In just five verses God is referred to 15 times - it's almost as if the psalmist is emphasising where the focus of our worship should be! As we place our attention on God and His characteristics we begin to see a fresh side to His nature and we cannot help but respond with songs of joy.

King David wrote something similar when he said, “Oh magnify the Lord with me, let us exalt His name together.” At the time David was a wanted man on the run from Saul, hiding in caves and fleeing for his life - if anyone had distractions to take Him away from worshipping God it was him! Nevertheless David declared “Oh magnify the Lord with me”, and sometimes that's exactly what we need to do. As we actively make the choice to magnify God, we become overwhelmed once again by His goodness and faithfulness. Then out of that place of fresh revelation we once again begin to shout with songs of joy!

One of the lyrics from our latest recording says, “I choose to look on the beautiful King, I will lift up my eyes.” Lets make that choice in our worship to lift our gaze above our circumstances and place our focus back on the object of our worship - our great God and Saviour, the Beautiful King.