Tag: 2015

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Exnovios “Ya casi es Navidad” (2015)

pink cartoon superhero-esque figure raising his arms and surrounded by smoke.

Self Released
Buy: Bandcamp (NYOP)

HEY!

It turns out my friends Exnovios — whose absolutely stellar new track “Ya Es Navidad” I reviewed yesterday — do indeed have another Christmas song in their back catalogue. In fact, you have to go back ten years, to 2015 and their first release, Demo.

The “sister song” to their new one, “Ya casi es Navidad,” follows a very different musical path. With its fuzzy tones, thumping drums, and spacey vocals — while the new track rocks you in your head, this one rocks you in your chest. The lyrics are once again something to embrace, carrying all the mystical hopefulness that only a perfect psych-rock Christmas song can provide.

Here’s a translation for us English-speaking folks:

If you want to fly, you can think
of something enchanting — it’s almost Christmas.

AND FLY…

If you want to fly, you can think
of something enchanting — crystal toys.

AND FLY OVER THE SEA AND REACH
ALMOST, ALMOST, THE END.

(EDIT: It turns out that the lyrics are built with phrases from the following scene in Peter Pan! Amazing!)

I think the Exnovios crew has carved out a wholly unique place in the alternative Christmas canon. They’ve found this beautiful backdoor into Christmas that I didn’t know existed — one of pure hope and beauty, while still sounding like one of the coolest bands on the planet.

Bottom Line: I could have been listening to this song for ten years! As could you have. Well, our lives begin anew today, and all your dreams will come true. This is a pretty great song 🙂

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Mallee Songs “Christmas ’93” (2015)

Beko
Buy: Bandcamp

I saw a Thread yesterday (YES, I am on Threads… ugh… damn you Elmo) that had me pondering that eternal question… name 10 records to know me better. One of those records was the Silver Jews’ American Water. That record blew me away and helped mold my taste in everything from music to modern art, movies, and literature. Elvis Costello may have cracked the window, but the Silver Jews’ David Berman blew up the house. Thus, when I hear a band that makes me think of David… I’m probably going to start feeling all warm and fuzzy toward them. Melbourne’s Mallee Songs‘ track, “Christmas ’93” off of 2015’s Natural Times most certainly feels inspired by the Silver Jews, thus I’m on board. I know that the song will certainly be filed on the sad side of the Christmas shelf, as the main joy of the narrator’s holiday is trying out every bed in the house. If you read this blog, you know that rarely scares me off. There is no beating around the bush, as the tone is set immediately: “Oh it’s Christmas time / I just want to recoil into myself.” In addition to the obvious alt.country via Pavement guitar lines, it was the lyrics that ultimately led me to the David Berman comparison – “I only get up / to pick at the meat / when nobody is there / My family walks on the beach / yet I don’t care.” This is one of those mundane moments that nobody would put in a song… but here it is. I love those moments, no matter how melancholy they might be. Not all sad songs have to make you sad, you know?

Bottom Line: There is somehow a warmth within this sad song and a beauty in its mundanity. You may feel the same?

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Maude Audet “C’est No​ë​l, je m’en fous” (2015)

Bravo musique
Buy: Bandcamp (FREE!)

In what might just become the year that I hunt down every cool French Christmas song I possibly can, I present Montréal’s Maude Audet and her wonderful 2015 Christmas single, “C’est No​ë​l, je m’en fous,” which translates to “It’s Christmas, I Don’t Care.” The song is all about how it may be Christmas, but the narrator doesn’t care about the weather, the presents, the tree or anything at all, as she only cares that she’s with you. It is a lovely slice of French indie folk, as delicate banjos pluck along under the steady chime of sleigh bells, perhaps sparking a gentle sway as you sit at your desk. Equally lovely in sentiment and sonics, this song is a delight indeed. Magnifique!

Bottom Line: I continue my search for fantastic French Christmas songs and appear to only be pulling aces. I’m sure this will last… 🙂

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Mr. Manager & Katy Kirby – A Salute To Good King Wenceslas: Christmas Joy Forever and Ever Amen (2015)

Mama Bear
Buy: Bandcamp (Free!)

Katy Kirby has been featured once before on this site, with her absolutely stunning cover of the Handsome Family’s “So Much Wine, Merry Christmas,” and could very well be featured one more time should you wish to hunt it down before I get around to it…

This two-track single from 2015 features a collaboration between Nashville’s Mr. Manager & Katy Kirby, each featuring the kind of emotional indie folk that I’m indeed a sucker for. The first song, “Don’t be Sad Molly, It’s Christmas,” is a shared duet convincing Molly to be happy at Christmas. I’m trying to figure out the relationship between the narrator and the subject, but who really cares… we all can draw our own conclusions. There are some wonderful lyrics here:

you walked alone out in the snowflakes
you walked away from all the mistakes
the holiday of joy and heartache
it’s Christmas, sweet Molly please stay

The second track, “Baby, Don’t You Know It’s Christmas Eve,” is much more of a Mr. Manager feature, with Katy providing backing vocals (and likely an instrument or two.) Their intertwined vocal interplay, the beautiful banjo melody, all while pouring out these evocative lines, the whole experience left me staring off into the distance… imagining a past I never lived. (I’m an easy mark.) But check this verse:

I filled this book all to the brim
with songs of our love caving in
but I’ll burn the pages, break the pen
and tonight I’ll write you that love song
the one I’ve promised all year long
oh baby, don’t you know it’s christmas eve?

That “break the pen” line is so simple and so powerful. Simplicity is a weapon that many folks can’t wield, but Mr. Manager and Katy Kirby have some big guns here.

Bottom Line: Both songs are incredibly solid, and I’m sure I’d find differing opinions as to which one reigns supreme. But what a wonderful problem to have.

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YACHT “Christmas Alone” (2015/2020)

Yacht - Christmas Alone

Self Released
Buy: Bandcamp

I swear. I will stop talking about how I always burn out at the end of the season, and will no longer begin every post with an apology for not posting it sooner. But.. especially when songs are topical, and (HOPEFULLY) very specifically attached to one particular year, it does feel like a missed opportunity (so… sorry). Los Angeles’ YACHT have been on my radar for years, and I do recall their fun, oddball electro-pop track “Christmas Alone” from that inaugural Indie for the Holidays playlist that Amazon released back in 2015. That first version was mainly about how much they love spending time home alone on Christmas – having fun grabbing takeout and going to the movies and such. Well, this past Christmas had its own unique circumstances, and they rewrote the song for our 2020 COVID Christmas. The fun imagery is gone, replaced by these truly beautiful lines, disguised inside this bouncy, Waitresses’ evoking track.

Mom and Dad are vexed we’re spending Christmas far away,
But love is not a test, love is opening to change

We don’t need a Christmas tree and we don’t need a chimney
We just need each other and to stay home watching TV

Remember the days before money ate the mission
Maybe now’s the time to make some new traditions

This year we’re just happy we can celebrate our luck
We made this far and that should be enough

Everybody has to stay at home
This Christmas it’s you and me alone

All we need is love to make a home
So this Christmas it’s you and me alone

Hope is a relation tween the future & the past
Time is so short but dreaming helps it last

Give a little this year to the ones who need it best
lost a lotta living but we’re grateful for what’s left

Gear up for another year you think is gonna break ya
Keep holding up the ones you love and keep each other safer

Doesn’t even matter if it’s Christmas Day today
When we have each other, every day’s a holiday

Everybody has to stay at home
So next Christmas we won’t be on our own

All we need is love to make a home
So this Christmas it’s you and me alone

I’ve been looking for those bits of hope, those bits of love. Those are the songs I gravitated to last year. So… even though I’m a bit late to the post, and even though this song may not have as much potency beyond last Christmas (PLLLLEEEAAASSEEE be so), it is still a worthy song.

Bottom Line: YACHT converted this fun, poppy song into a poignant, yet still fun, poppy song. All money goes to the Los Angeles Food Bank, so don’t be scared off that $5 price tag.

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Don’t Call Me Ishmael “Mary and Joseph” (2015)

Don't Call me Ishmael Dark Christmas E.P.

DROMA Records
Buy: Bandcamp (NYOP) | Bandcamp (Compilation)

Stafford, England’s Don’t Call Me Ishmael are big fans of Christmas. I’m honestly amazed that I had not discovered them until this year, as they have multiple Christmas EPs, with releases every year since 2015. I’ve got a lot to choose from, but the song I’m going to highlight is the beautiful, and powerful, “Mary and Joseph,” off of 2015’s Dark Christmas EP. What immediately caught me was this sensation that I’m hearing an amazing Billy Bragg Christmas song. I’ve got this live Billy Bragg record that has been in my CD changer (yes, I have one) for YEARS… I stress, YEARS, because it always seems to pop on when my soul needs it. “Mary and Joseph” scratches that same itch. No accompaniment, just two voices reminding us to be grateful for what we have at Christmas. I’m most certainly looking forward to their upcoming Christmas release slated for Monday, December 9th. Follow them on Facebook, their label on Bandcamp, etc, to be the first to hear it! And dig into those older tracks too!

Bottom Line: Powerful simplicity in the vein of Billy Bragg… which is high praise.

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Steven Branstrom “Christmas” (2011/2015)

Self Released
Buy: Stream

I really should have posted this on November 1. Frankly, I’ve had this song in my pocket for YEARS. I meant to write about it way back in 2015. That’s at least when I sent Steven Branstrom a note on Soundcloud, in the hopes that he’d give me a bit more info beyond the 3 tracks on his account. (Of note… there is an additional account under the same name, with this song, that was posted way back in 2011!). Enough background, little information as it provided, let’s get into the song. “Christmas” may very well be the shortest song that I’ve ever featured, clocking in at only 40 seconds. BUT, it is a very nice 40 seconds, and with slightly tongue-in-cheek lyrics coupled with a beautifully sincere delivery, transitioning us from Halloween to Christmas.

So let’s grab the spider webs and put away the skulls.
Clean up the fake blood that got splattered on the walls
Let’s put everything scary out of our sight
cause Santa’s coming baby in 54 nights.

Streaming-only… but there are ways, should you decide you need this little guy on your mix.

Bottom Line: And that’s it! Short and sweet!

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Stephen Solo “War is Never Over (Even if you want it)” (2015)

Self Released
Buy: 7Digital (MP3/FLAC) | Amazon.uk MP3 | Amazon.fr MP3 | Amazon MP3

For those bands out there who want to write a Christmas song, but don’t know where to begin – let me pose two options for you. The first would be found in Bossy Love’s reinterpretation of the Waitresses’ “Christmas Wrapping,” where they updated the song to be more of-the-moment. The second approach would be to write a response song. A good example of this approach can be found in Stephen Solo‘s “War is Never Over (Even if you want it).” Back in 2015, the British had begun participating in airstrikes in Syria, and from Stephen’s perspective back in Glasgow… beginning a new chapter of an unending war. So, he took his phone (as he does) and recorded this brutal condemnation of the action, hung on the frame of John Lennon’s “Happy Xmas (War is Over).”

“Let the Big Ben bells ring out for bombs this Christmas / the only peace we’ll get this year is pieces of skulls and baby bones. / War is never over even if you want it.”

Stark indeed. Extremely well-produced, yet tough to listen to, as you are forced to reflect on what violence means to you when it happens so far away.

Bottom Line: Stephen Solo’s “Christmas” song will likely feel quite contemporary, renewed by humanity’s skillful violence, for many years to come.

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Bjéar “Silent Night”, “Joy to the World” (2015)

Bjéar Christmas

Self Released
Buy: Stream

Things are getting weird around these parts. We’re all about to get nuked, and I’m sitting here writing the second post in threee days about an instrumental Christmas song. Adelaide, Australia’s Bjéar has a Soundcloud stream full of solid, RIYL Bon Iver/Sufjan Stevens indie folk/rock. I initially heard his excellent Sufjan-esque “Big Sky” and really loved it; I think it was one of those “Soundcloud chooses another song” situations. So I click through to the profile, and discover these two Christmas songs – “Silent Night” and “Joy to the World.” These are two songs that rarely make appearances on this, very secular Christmas blog. However, there is a quality to them that leads me to this moment. Bjéar’s arrangements are the obvious strength of these songs. “Joy to the World” has subtle variations on the melodies you’d expect, and yet it sounds fresh to my bitter ears. “Silent Night” is extremely simple – pretty much a solo piano effort for the first minute. Then, more colors enter, and it opens up. Neither track reinvents these classic songs, but Bjéar’s choices have a sensibility that indie rock fans such as myself will certainly appreciate.

Bottom Line: I find myself in uneasy, instrumental and religious Christmas song waters, but Bjéar helps me swim.

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Diane Coffee “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas” (2015)

Diane Coffee - It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Western Vinyl
Buy: Soundcloud (FREE!)

Take a song that feels rather formulaic, one where 1 + 1 obviously equals two… and to throw a wrench (and maybe a tab of acid) in the works. Diane Coffee‘s rendition of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” is just this… it nudges the classic formula gently off the cliff and all of a sudden you are in the middle of this amazing fuzzed-out guitar, and you’ve forgotten how to count. For those unfamiliar with Diane Coffee, he has released two fascinating art-pop records on Western Vinyl (most notably the original home of Dirty Projectors), as well as being the initial drummer for friends (and sonic brothers) Foxygen. This one-off track was released in 2015, and is still available for free on Soundcloud, which is extremely generous. This track is good enough to be released on its own… perhaps Diane Coffee should record another xmas tune this year and release a 7″? I’d buy it, no doubt. For now, we’ll have to settle for a non-holiday 7″, as his new release Peel will be out on Polyvinyl on October 20th.

Bottom Line: It’s beginning to look a lot like art-pop Christmas, Diane Coffee, and I’m totally cool with it. Let’s get freaky.

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