It’s no secret that I’m an a cappella freak. A cappella rules, and I’m a life-long die hard.

That being said, I will occasionally bend and flex my rules and preferences and tolerate some instrumentation. Rarely an instrumental project though!

Not long ago I purchased one of the VERY FEW instrumental recordings that I own. Very few. But this one’s pretty good, and I’ll tell you what I like about it.

These guys (just kids, they are) are great musicians, and not only are they good players but they can take a piece and make music out of it.

What I really like, though, is their creativity and the way they take a song and make it theirs. Listen to track 4, “Nothing but the Blood.” (1.3 MB) Great stuff.

The band is primarily made up of guitar, mandolin, and bass. One of the things I dislike about a lot of instrumentation is that it seems like someone was trying to set a record for how many different instruments they could get on one song. A noisy mish-mash of clutter is usually the result, but that doesn’t happen here.

I asked Kyle how they got the name “Apogee.” He replied that it came from a “Word of the Day” mobile phone vocabulary enhancing program. They started joking about it, and over time the name stuck!

He continues, “we…considered calling ourselves The Iced Tea Forever Entourage Band, but decided against it…” Wise decision, I’m sure that wouldn’t have done anything for them!

Yes, I am special, I have an autographed copy.

Here are some pics from the studio of the Apogee Band recording this project.

Update: I knew there was something I was forgetting! Contact Gospel Echoes if you’d like a copy.