The worship team from Planetshakers Church, one of Australia's fastest growing churches in history, released Outback Worship Sessions globally amidst acclaim last week through Integrity Music. During its first week at retail, the album became the most downloaded iTunes album across all genres of music for a period of time in Malaysia and Singapore while hitting No. 3 in Indonesia, No. 8 in South Africa, No. 9 in Australia, No. 12 in Colombia, No. 21 in the Philippines, No. 22 in Taiwan and more significant chart positions across the globe. The album also hit No. 1 in Australia, No. 2 in the USA and No. 3 in the UK on the iTunes Christian charts. As the church and its music transcends cultures, languages and geographical boundaries, Outback Worship Sessions' first week sales success has made it one of the fastest selling albums in Planetshakers' history.
What started as a project to re-craft Planetshakers' most-loved worship anthems into a form accessible to worship teams representing the wider church body grew into an 11-track studio recording produced by Grammy- and Dove-Award winning Ed Cash. Giving a new intimate 'voice' to Planetshakers' best-loved anthems, Cash also co-wrote "Spirit Of God" and "Father" for Outback Worship Sessions with Planetshakers' Bj Pridham. Cash further penned the album's new song, "My Soul Longs For Jesus," which NewReleaseTuesday.com (NRT) calls "an incredible song for the Church." The new video of the song recorded in Australia's Outback and released May 9 has already received more than 43,000 views (watch below).
Two additional videos for "Like A Fire" and "Nothing Is Impossible" from
Outback Worship Sessions have been recorded organically in a small church in the heart of Australia's Outback. Together with "My Soul Longs for Jesus," the videos will be hosted on YouTube as resources for churches and worship leaders around the globe.
Integrity Music is also offering a companion digital Outback Worship Sessions songbook free of charge through
www.weareworship.com.
Seeing and hearing the vision of the new album, Worship Leader magazine lauds the recording as "A gift to the Church... a powerful collection of accessible, incredible congregational songs... a powerful worship experience, both familiar and new." NewReleaseTuesday.com agrees that "there are several instantly singable and worshipful arrangements that you'll want to add to your Sunday morning setlist," as Soul-Audio.com declares the music is "perfect for church worship teams or times of personal worship." LouderThanTheMusic.com suggests "this album is one to get hold of straight away," affirmed by FDRMX.com saying that "Outback Worship Sessions is a carefully crafted album that will usher in a new generation of fans."
Having led over 200,000 people at a single event in Asia and sharing new music and other favorite Planetshakers worship anthems around the world, Planetshakers will be featured May 23 during the
Big Church Day Out in West Sussex, UK along with Switchfoot, NEEDTOBREATHE, Lecrae and more. Planetshakers will also be the featured worship leader June 28-29 during several events at CBA's International Christian Retail Show 2015 (
ICRS) that will include appearances by Lee Greenwood, Josh McDowell, Steve Green (Hobby Lobby) and others. Planetshakers will further be featured during the
National Worship Leader Conference June 23-25 and headlining along with Casting Crowns and Jesus Culture "Florida's biggest Christian music festival,"
Rock The Universe, Sept. 12.
