One Voice

Malcolm Gordon (26) has been writing songs and sporadically touring for the past 8 years. He has toured with Y-One (2001) and his former band Somebody's Cousin (2002-2006). The Cousins recorded two studio albums ('Brighter Day' - 2004, 'Here We Are' - 2006). More recently his song-writing has branched out, in 2006 he wrote and directed his first musical, and last year saw the release of his debut solo album, 'As I Am'.

2008 sees the release of the album 'One Voice', which moves away from the youthful vibrance and raw electric charge of Somebody's Cousin, but also retreats from his recent experiment of a solo album which featured unplugged simplicity and 'perfect authenticity'.

Collaborating with producer and friend, Geoff Duncan (who produced the Cousins second album), former bandmate, Tony Zwies and session drummer, Tom Mepham (of Mephymology), the album was recorded over two weeks at Te Horo, north of Wellington.

The project developed out of Malcolm's desire to see the New Zealand Church sing songs that helped people authentically voice their praises, their petitions and their confessions to their God. Should worship songs be franchised just like fastfood, with Hillsongs being our McDonalds? Or should we write and sing songs that make sense in our place, of who we are, of who we are experiencing God to be amongst us? These are the questions that have provided Malcolm with the impetus to set out on this new musical venture.

His ultimate plan is to establish 'The One Voice Project' which will endeavour to rally song writers and lyricists to produce a resource of contextual and contemporary worship music every couple of years.

The guiding principal throughout this has been to create music that is 'Theologically authentic and culturally credible'. Too often music that is sung in churches tends to excel in one of those areas at the expense of the other. To avoid this, Malcolm has sought a great deal of input to ensure the music is accessible and the lyrics are both rich and true to the Christian Faith.

Much of Malcolm's lyrics have been heavily influenced by his studies in Theology at Otago University. He is now in his final year of ministry formation and will be licensed as a Presbyterian Minister at the end of the year.