Matthew Jacoby – Founder Leader
In 1998, with Jason temporarily back in the band, we decided to record a proper studio album. We got a cheap deal with a new recording studio in town and prepared to record our strange collection of Psalms. I marked the sessions in my diary: three days for recording, mainly live in the studio, and two days to mix it down. We still laugh about that. It was a sign of how naïve I was. Well, months later we did finish the album and the result, Light of Life was original enough to put us out there as an emerging band. Light of Life was able to go far and wide mainly because of the support of CMC Australasia a non-profit Christian distribution and resource company. We signed a lease agreement with them for Light of Life and since then all our albums have been handled through this company. The then CEO of the company, Stuart Duncan, had a huge vision for the band and has been instrumental in keeping us moving.
Later that same year we secured a gig at the Blackstump festival, way out in the bushland south of Sydney, where a big crowd pressed into the supper club tent to hear us perform our tunes. In those days the bands would stick their posters to trees to promote their gigs at the festival. I guess our poster of a band with a 150 year old acoustic bass out front looked pretty different to the usual electric guitar line-up. It’s funny the small things that can make a difference. For an acoustic band we were able to create a lot of energy and dynamics and we held our own though surrounded mainly by metal and rock bands. The music was very energetic at that stage. The ambient moodier style would emerge later particularly as Rod and I worked by ourselves.
