4+ – Page 18 – Christmas Underground

November 23, 2020

Jetstream Pony – Grief of a Frozen Sailor / Hit the Snow (2020)

Even during this COVID-plagued monstrosity, when wonderful traditions like the Fowler VW/Blackwatch Christmas compilation are on forced hiatus, the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club keep the fire burning. Each year, SCSC finds 3-4 bands that are game to record a new Christmas song A-side alongside a classic Christmas cover B-side, and then he unleashes the into the world in limited white vinyl glory. If you read this blog, you know that I often veer towards the indiepop goodies, and this year SCSC has offered a doozy. To describe Jetstream Pony as anything but an indiepop supergroup is absurd since the band features Beth Arzy (The Luxembourg Signal, Trembling Blue Stars, Aberdeen, Charlie Big Time, The Fireworks) on vocals, Shaun Charman (The Wedding Present, The Popguns, The Fireworks) on guitar and backing vocals, Kerry Boettcher (Turbocat) on bass and Hannes Müller (The BV’s, Endlich Bluete), who makes his debut on drums on this release. With a pedigree like that, you’d expect that the songs will be excellent, and I believe the expectations were beautifully met. The A-side original, “Grief of a Frozen Sailor,” begins those indiepop vocals and jangly rhythm guitars that I love until the reinforcements come in, and shoegaze guitars begin to rain down. Throw in some layered vocals and jingle bells, and this is a highlight of both the shoegaze/indiepop Christmas genre.

I’ve been waiting to write about this record until I could hear the b-side, as I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered a cover of the absolutely stellar Aislers Set indie Christmas classic, “Hit the Snow.” Jetstream Pony’s version has added some meat to the production, with heavier guitars than the original, certainly making their mark on an already fantastic song. An unexpected result of my writing delay was that, as wonderful as this release is, everyone else appears to think similarly. The 7″ is sold out on Jetstream Pony’s Bandcamp, as well as for individual purchase through SCSC (still available within the 3-7″ set). However, I do believe I have found a few stores that may be getting some copies and have listed them above.

Be sure to check out the other 2 releases from this year, and if you are new to this alternative Christmas music game, all the other year’s previous releases at Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club. There are some amazing tracks to be discovered, many of which have made my own personal Christmas mix (high praise!).

Bottom Line: Two sides of absolutely stellar indiepop/shoegaze Christmas tunes. This record is going to be one of those folks are going to be hunting down in a decade…

LISTEN

November 21, 2020

Willie J. Healey “Merry Christmas” (2020)

Wow. Just wow. Oxfordshire’s Willie J. Healey has just released an incredible new Christmas song, and proper fanfare is in order. This song has a heavy John Lennon vibe, but not necessarily tied down to a 60s sound – it feels timeless. Willie’s voice that steals the show here; There are these subtle moments where you get a good feel for how truly good his voice is without the showy fanfare that often accompanies that kind of talent. With some fantastic lyrics, a killer chorus, and that beautiful production, this should make this a surefire hit on your 2020 Christmas mix.

Bottom Line: Willie’s song made my morning Soundcloud journey one of absolute bliss. (Perhaps a Bandcamp listing soon? Fingers crossed!)

LISTEN

Willie J Healey · Merry Christmas

November 21, 2020November 21, 2020

Thom Stone – Christmas at the End of the World (2020)

Self Released
Buy: Bandcamp

Thom Stone has been featured here on Christmas Underground many times before under his previous nom de plume, Young War, who were fucking fantastic (you can still buy their records! Buy them!). This time around, Thom is recording under his own name, and has more than doubled his previous holiday catalog in one shot. Having always wanted to write a Christmas record, Thom took the second lockdown in November and decided to make something positive out of it. So he gathered one microphone, one guitar and some sleigh bells stolen from his two-year old’s music set, and created Christmas at the End of the World. The album features eight songs, all of which blend the uncertainty and creeping optimism that so many of us are feeling right now. On “Merry Christmas (What a Hell of a Year),” Thom looks at our world running at 1/4 speed, and instead of focusing on the obvious crisis, finds reasons to be sincerely thankful and embraces the spirit of Christmas and a hope for change. I want to take this sentiment and bottle it:

Our time, we’re so terrified of wasting our time
But I’m thankful for the chance to waste mine
It’s a gift
Nothing else there, on my list
So hold on, something’s got to change
And I hear, something kind of strange
Sleigh bells, in the air
Magic, everywhere
And I apologize for getting sentimental
I’m only trying to be sincere
I guess there’s nothing much left to say
Merry Christmas what a hell of a year
Merry Christmas what a hell of a year

The lyrics on this record continue to impress, even when the song only lives for 50 seconds, as in “A Manger Incident:”

What if nobody ever found Jesus?
What if there was no star in the sky?
What if Mary told Joseph her secret?
And Joseph went out of his mind?
What if Gabriel just couldn’t make it?
And God couldn’t handle the guilt?
What if the three wise men were three wise women?
Imagine what we could’ve built

I could write about every single song on this record – the gorgeous sentiment of “Could It Be Christmastime,” the apocalyptic beauty of “Christmas at the End of the World,” the mantra of “Noel, noel, go ring the bell / I see the snow on the leaves” in “Snow on the Leaves,” as each song is deserving of appreciation. But alas, you all need to experience them for yourself as well, without the power of suggestion that a reviewer might add. So listen, then buy it. All proceeds from this record go to the Manchester Cares charity, a community network bringing younger and older neighbors together to tackle isolation and loneliness. If that isn’t something we all can relate to after this year…

Bottom Line: Thom Stone has tapped into something special with Christmas at the End of the World, the most poignant lockdown Christmas record of the season.

LISTEN

November 21, 2020

Ben Caplan “O Holy Night” (2020)

Rhyme and Reason Records
Buy: Bandcamp

I think this may be the only time I’ve ever written, or will ever write, about “O Holy Night” on this blog. I don’t normally warm up to the classics, as the classics are classics for a reason… they are done, and done, and done… so to me, they are done. Ben Caplan, this Canadian, Jewish, folk musician has managed the near-impossible… because here we are. On his Bandcamp page, Ben writes about why he decided to record this song, and it is enlightening:

I didn’t grow up listening to much Christmas music. Being Jewish, Christmas wasn’t a big thing in my home [read: non-existent]. That said, we all know it’s pretty hard to ignore the Christmas season; just like everyone else, I am constantly bombarded with Christmas cheer outside of the home. I have to admit that I find a lot of that music a bit corny. Where is that minor fall? Where is the major lift? Where is the bafflement?
I’ve always loved the idea of recording my own take on this music. There are a lot of great Christmas songs out there, but I don’t love all the aesthetic choices. Where are all the violins and clarinets!? I have a deep felt belief that if you don’t like something, you should do something about it. It’s not enough to complain from the sidelines!
I had my first opportunity to dip my toe into the icy Christmas music waters in 2012 when I recorded Fairytale of New York with Norwegian artists Katzenjammer and Trondheimsolistene. On that project, I got to work with a huge string ensemble and a terrific arrangement. On my recording of O Holy Night, I wanted to use a similarly lush and over-the-top arrangement, but take it in my own darker direction. That said, I can’t take much credit. I owe a lot to my collaborators.

Ben then goes on to break down the full journey of this recording – from the intital concept, to the particulars of the recording. All said, he worked with sixteen other artists over four years from concept to final song. There is a dedication there that you can truly hear in the music – there is not a note off, and those notes are fascinating. Ben has imbued “O Holy Night” with power, perhaps unsettling at times, that you did not expect, and cannot deny. The song is stirring and emotional, and it leaves me amazed. I tip my cap to Ben Caplan, as well as the sixteen other musicians and artists involved in this triumph.

Bottom Line: Ben Caplan and Co. have taken white bread and created a bloody feast.

LISTEN

November 18, 2020November 18, 2020

Stephen Elliott “Cary Baru” (2020)

Self Released
Buy: Bandcamp

I feel like most things I’m finding this year can be filed under pretty excellent folk music. This isn’t quite the reaction to four years of post-Brexit and Trump rule that I was expecting. Then again, perhaps it makes total sense – we are all trying to calm our nerves after years of uncertainty…

The latest beautiful folk find is Stephen Elliott‘s “Cary Baru,” a song truly untethered to time nor place. This is one of those songs that sound like it could have easily been recorded last week or 40 years ago. Those first few moments of guitar picking and your mind will ping Nick Drake. Then you quickly get hints of Beatles, and back around to some more Nick Drake percussive bits amongst the metallic finger sliding residue of an early Elliott Smith record. The rhythm and pace of the song is a brisk walk, perfectly complimenting the lyrical basis of the song, which Stephen was kind enough to further describe to me earlier today.

Cary Baru is a short meditation on perseverance, on persisting in anticipation of a moment’s clarity, and on moving between these states. I wanted to compose something that embodied that sense of movement.

While the scene is set during the Christmas season, I initially found the lyrics to be ambiguous in the way that so much poetry is, allowing me to walk down multiple avenues, imagining different main characters, and leaving me wondering where the true story lied. After Stephen’s explanation, the song feels far-less personal than I had imagined, and it blossoms into a more universal story that everyone can take a piece from. This is one of those songs that benefits from multiple listens, so grab a jacket and add it to your playlist – we’re heading out (masked, of course).

Bottom Line: Stephen is learning some shiny new gear while under these COVID restrictions, and it sure seems he is getting the hang of it well.

LISTEN

November 18, 2020

Eastern Conference Champions “Saving Christmas” (2013)

RockHampton Records
Buy: 7Digital MP3 | Amazon MP3 | Amazon.uk MP3 | Amazon.de MP3 | Amazon.fr MP3

After a whole night of searching, sometimes you need to just take a layup, rather than try to dunk it. Yeah, I know the fans want that new song from 2020, but you’re just going to have to settle for this ridiculously fantastic song from 2013. Philadelphia’s Eastern Conference Champions may not be with us anymore, but their legacy lives on with a host of fantastic Christmas songs and I may have to throw those up on the blog as well. You can’t ask for much more than “Saving Christmas” when searching for an indie rock Christmas song – this song kicks in, and you are off and running. I can’t believe it snuck by me for so long…

Bottom Line: Eastern Conference Champions were one of the indie rock xmas greats, and this may be their seasonal Mona Lisa. You may even recognize that this song led off my own 2019 Christmas mix, as I do NOT discriminate against older Christmas songs. It it is fucking fantastic, it is in there.

LISTEN

November 12, 2020

Andrea von Kampen “A Midwest Christmas” (2020)

Self Released
Buy: Bandcamp

I stalk some of my readers whose tastes often match mine (hi @tuttijackson), and this totally-hip reference archivist recently bought a Christmas single on Bandcamp… so I was obviously intrigued had to check it out. The song was fantastic. The midwest has been vying to unseat Sweden as my focal point of excellent underground Christmas tunes, and Lincoln, Nebraska’s Andrea von Kampen has helped to further build this case with “A Midwest Christmas.” The song is written from a refreshingly honest point-of-view, which Andrea breaks down on her Bandcamp page:

When I sat down to write my first ever original Christmas tune, I felt at a loss for what to even write about. This year has been tough and disappointing in so many ways for everyone. I wanted to lift the spirits of people but I didn’t feel like sleigh bells, ice skating, or any of the other quintessential Christmas topics were relatable right now. And then I started to think about what really makes me happy and feel at peace during the holidays. It hasn’t ever been shopping or the big light displays, but the simple moments that show human kindness. That’s what “A Midwest Christmas” is really all about.

Andrea’s description got me thinking about the moments that I appreciate, and none of them revolve around Christmas parties or presents. Popping in to see friends, those shrimp that I never eat, and you all who read this blog and are in the same search for something that moves you at Christmas. Writing this song moved Andrea, and it most certainly comes through in the performance. Certainly a mix-worthy tune, especially with its brief 2:35 run time… brevity is always an asset.

Bottom Line: I feel like my blog is largely hyping up fantastic female singer-songwriters lately… and as long as great songs like this keep coming my way, so be it!

LISTEN

November 10, 2020

Wake Up And Smell The Sun – Electric Snow (2020)

Self Released
Buy: Bandcamp (NYOP)

Philadelphia’s Wake Up and Smell the Sun have expanded on 2019’s excellent 2-track Christmas single, Holiday Hymns for People, and created one of the best Christmas records I have heard in years with Electric Snow. This record, with its thumping drums, woozy guitars and big vocals make you sit back and ponder if Spiritualized or the Verve would be fucking jealous of this record. The instrumentation and production on this record is just so damn good that it can both sound so BIG, like the slowly built epic “Gingerbread,” and small and intimate on “Country Western Holiday Meltdown,” with both feeling like sonic siblings, wonderfully at home on the same record. This cohesive feel truly comes across on this 7-track release even more than their initial 2-track single – you really get a feel for the sound as a whole.

As you might imagine, I would be recommending this record based on the stellar music/production/vibe even if they gave up on lyrics entirely and sang nonsense words… but if you’ve come for the dinner, why not have a glorious fucking show too? Once you get into the music (and you will), you may find that you actually love this record for the lyrics. There were moments that I just began shaking my head and smiling, like during the title track “Electric Snow:” “Beneath the minor keys, the majorettes, and bells, / Sweet little girls with missing teeth seek inner peace within themselves (WHAT A LINE) / I’d like to share my Christmas Story, come on over / I once was haunted by a ghost, it mostly taught me how to coast / And when I tried to kick the habit, it gently pushed me in to traffic (AGAIN!) / Let it snow, electric snow, electric snow.” WHAT!?! There are so many incredibly interesting and clever lyrics on this record that I’ve been genuinely stressing out about how much I want to feature. I keep discovering new lines, and feel this absurd need to give every single lyric some sort of context. SO, with deep apologies to Wake Up And Smell The Sun for not writing this epic review delving into every single track… I am just too excited to share it with everyone, and I have an itchy publish finger.

If you are not already onboard, just press play. Problem solved.

Bottom Line: Frankly, I can’t wait to put this record on with some good headphones, because those guitars are going to surround me, and I’m going to happily surf the jet stream with this fantastic record.

LISTEN

I am going to post every song individually, as I cannot choose a favorite, and I want the Hype Machine to index every… single… song.

November 9, 2020November 9, 2020

Marcos y Molduras “La de Navidad” (2018/2019)

Discos de Kirlian
Buy: Bandcamp

Madrid’s Marcos y Molduras decided to revisit “La de Navidad,” which featured on their first single in 2018, and give it a full makeover… which as you know, can go either way…

facebook has reminded us that ‘a day like today …’ a year ago we published for the first time “worse would be to kill”, which included this anti-Christmas carol that, at these dates, we cannot continue to ignore.
so we have re-done it, this time with a little more affection and with less uncertainty about what our friends will think about it. We already know they like it, we hope you do too 🙂
Marcos y Molduras, Bandcamp

Well, as you might assume, the procedure was a smashing success. Sometimes I am all about lyrics, sometimes I’m all about FEELING. This song just FEELS SO GOOD. I do not speak Spanish (I took German in high school), but that has certianly never stopped me from jamming to some incredible spanish-language Christmas songs. I did some Google translate, and I’m even down for the anti-Christmas message. The food is too expensive, the families are loud and the businessmen are obnoxious. Christmas in the big city can be pretty shitty, especially without you.

So with that, Merry Christmas and try not to smile… even though you know the gist of the lyrics. I dare ya… Just feels too good eh? This is a stone-cold Christmas-mix hit.

Bottom Line: “La de Navidad” is bound to lead to involuntary movement of your feet, legs, head and mouth. Buy it, listen to it four times, and tweet at me in the morning.

LISTEN

November 8, 2020November 10, 2020

They Is They Is They Is ” Your Kind of White Christmas Sucks” (2016)

Self Released
Buy: Bandcamp

I really, really wish I had found this little gem, “Your Kind of White Christmas Sucks,” by They Is They Is They Is (gonna call them TITITI to make things easier) back in 2016. I love a Christmas song that has a message beyond the usual “Boy I can’t wait to come home for Christmas and/or I wish you were with me for Christmas” that so many Christmas songs sink into, and these lyrics are a perfect time capsule of the anxiety swirling through a world flying out of control:

“Grubby little opportunists are stirring a rage
They come bearing hate in the post-factual age
But Jesus was a dark-skinned, socialist Jew
Who died in the name of peace, love and truth
So if ever there’s a Christmas to think of the meek
It’s 2016 with the havoc we’ve wreaked.”

Just thinking about that time, immediately post-Brexit vote and post-Trump election… I recall driving to work in a detached haze, not knowing what the future was going to look like in a way that I had never experienced before. To be faced with that, and to still find hope, as TITITI does in the chorus, is both surprising and encouraging:

“I’ll be hopeful this Christmas
Won’t give into fear
I’ll be wishing this Christmas
For a kinder new year

We’ve got to cohere
I’m really sincere
Now pass me a beer”

This song highlights those seeds of resistance, those seeds of kindness that were planted back in 2016. I would like to believe these sentiments have been slowly growing over the past four years, and may have begun to block out some of those weeds. Not that everything is fixed, and it is unlikely to ever truly be perfect, but we still have kindness and hope. They haven’t taken that away.

Had I begun writing this review a week ago… I think it would have had a significantly different tone. Still… a great song, with a beautiful sentiment.

EDIT: A lovely reader of Christmas Underground actually recommended this to me – but not quite understanding the new “Business Suite” (like this is a business) app, I hadn’t seen it! Thank you Konstadina – you have my taste pegged. I only wish I had seen it back in October!

Bottom Line: They Is They Is They Is crafted a thoughtful (yet oddly funny), beautiful (but not in the traditional sense) song that signaled the beginning of the Christmas music resistance.