John Michael Talbot releases new album 'Worship And Bow Down'

ONE OF Christian music's most prolific artist John Michael Talbot has released his 52nd album, 'Worship And Bow Down' on Troubadour For The Lord Records. This is the first project the 56 year-old, who currently resides in Arkansas in a Secular Franciscan Monastery, has released in over two years. The 17-track album is a collection of modern-chant style songs for personal and communal prayer. Said Talbot, "It's different from my previous albums because there's a new Roman Missal coming out this year, so there's a need for new liturgical settings. The old musical settings of the Mass no longer work. I did some new settings and I took them to Oregon Catholic Press, the largest Catholic publisher of music in the world. They got excited about it, but they said they'd like some other great texts as well. They wanted a new setting of Psalm 95, and they wanted a good communion hymn as well. They wanted a new setting of the Hail Mary that really focused on the centrality of Jesus. I also had some other tunes. One focuses on the use of the Jesus Prayer, which comes from the Christian East, and one comes from the use of the breath in Christian meditation, which goes back to St Didacus of Fuerteventura. And I wanted to do some texts that focus on the trouble that we're going through as people. So I did a treatment based on the annunciation 'Nothing Is Impossible'. And I did a setting of Habakkuk, traditionally from Evening Prayer in the Vesper service: Hinds Feet On High Places."