Norwegian electropop band Flunk has just dropped Xmas EP, a very chill new five-song release that gathers four beautiful, sparse covers (all of which have appeared in some form before) alongside one reworking of a previous song, “Sanctuary,” reimagined as a stripped-down Christmas version.
I’ll touch briefly on the covers, if only to point out that while Flunk is commonly known as an electronic band, three of the four tracks are accompanied only by solo acoustic guitar, with the remaining track featuring a lone electric guitar. The guitars exist mainly to frame the true centerpiece of these songs: vocalist Anja Øyen Vister’s beautiful—and yes, I have to say it—Björk-esque vocals.
“Sanctuary,” in its original form, is a lovely, chilled electropop track. Here, it’s pulled apart and rebuilt with gentle bells and subtle textures, the drums removed entirely, creating something far more ethereal than the original. I can easily imagine this track closing out someone’s holiday mix.
Bottom Line: Some gorgeous stuff here – surprised I hadn’t sniffed it out before!
It’s been a while since I’ve had a track sung in Norwegian on my mix, but this wonderful song by the Oslo duo Wold Wiggen may very well sneak its way on there. “Gaver er det meste med jula synes jeg,” or “Gifts are the most important thing about Christmas, I think,” tells the story of someone stealing all the presents from under the tree and hiding them away. It begins nicely enough—full stomachs, everyone cozy and warm while it snows outside. But Uncle Erling is a bit drunk, and something snaps. If the gifts are the best part of Christmas… well, let’s open them and take them all.
The orchestration is simple, driven largely by gentle guitar and bass, which—at least for a non-Norwegian speaker like myself—was the hook that initially reeled me in. There’s no chorus, just a beautiful brass melody line in its place. I’m a bit dense sometimes when it comes to identifying instruments—French horn? Whatever it is, it’s gorgeous, and it’s the flavor that makes this song so delicious.
Bottom Line: Norway is running up the score today. 2-for-2 with mixworthy songs. Amazing.
I honestly had no idea what to expect from “December95” by King Hüsky. You find yourself on his Bandcamp page, and the bio cuts off after “guitarist of the critically acclaimed Norwegian heavy metal band Kvelertak,” so needless to say, I was anticipating something quite different than what I encountered. The song I heard was wonderful, and is by no means the Norwegian metal that I anticipated; I am not into metal – read mysubmissions page. This song happened to be aimed dead between my eyes. A kill shot.
King Hüsky is the solo work of Vidar Landa, who, besides being a guitarist in a metal band, is also in indie rock/power pop band Beachheads. “December95” sets a beautiful, snowy scene, snug in their home. While the Christmas lights and the VCR don’t work, the scene, the lyrics, and the melody are all uplifting in a way that I was truly touched by. I remain amazed. What an unexpected and extraordinary song.
Ok. How deep do I go in the bio of Sunturns, a classic indie Christmas band? Do I explain how this Voltron of Christmas combines forces nearly every year to bless us with a new track, a vinyl record, or a live show (which, unless I win the lottery and quit my job, I’ll never attend – Dec 12 this year for folks near Oslo)? Well, if you are new here, click this link and read up.
Now that everyone else is reading the old posts, we can finally talk. Sunturns have a new Live EP, Live at Parkteatret, coming out on December 1! You’ve got four tracks off last year’s Christmas III and one from the classic debut, Christmas. Short, but solid. I always love hearing from Sunturns, and this little live postcard from them is a welcome addition to my holiday. It sounds pretty great, too.
Bottom Line: It’s Sunturns! If you know and love them, add this one to the collection – you won’t regret it. If not – dive in!
Gotta look for stable things to grab onto these days. I already see myself leaning harder into Christmas traditions, both as a source of familiar comfort and frankly, to have some sense of control in a world of uncertainty. Just ordered a new fake Christmas tree… yes, we are a fake tree family. This one is supposed to feel real… I bet I could find something there to write about. Feeling real…
Some bands have begun to establish themselves within my Christmas traditions – bands I look to every year with anticipation of something new and wonderful. Herr Wade and the whole crew at Platiruma!!! are most certainly in that exclusive club. This year’s offering is Herr Wade’s excellent 4-song EP, We Still Remember Funky Christmas. Herr Wade is a collaboration between Jørn Åleskjær (The Loch Ness Mouse, Monobird, Sapphire & Steel) and Sebastian Voss (Nah…, The Fisherman and his Soul, Cinema Engines), and this duo have now dropped mixworthy tracks for three years in a row. The standout of this EP is (IMHO) the German disco track “Schulbus auf dem Eis” (Schoolbus on the Ice). I speak a liiittttllle German, but I’m certainly not quick, so I was most appreciative when Sebastian gave me a bit more context for the song: “The story is about the slippery situation on the street after snow was heavily falling, the last day before x-mas season and being at least able to hold hands with your crush who‘s sitting next to you….”
Well, isn’t that just great? Christmas! Young love! Danger! An earworm of a chorus and a Nile Rodgers groove that satisfies German and non-German speakers alike!
Stone-cold mixworthy.
Bottom Line: In a world spinning out of control, Herr Wade are here for you and will make you move dein Hintern.
LISTEN
Here is a Google translation of the paragraph at the beginning of the video: With my most heartfelt thanks to my bus driver at the time, Herbert, in whose accordion bus I boarded twice a day between 1985 and 1994 as a “Reckenfeld bus child”, and who knew how to stoically maneuver the white Büssing vehicle with his equally white clogs through wind and weather. To this day, he has made many friends on his travels throughout Europe and Asia, but also on the scheduled services between Greven and Reckenfeld, and has covered thousands and thousands of “completely accident-free kilometers”. I take my hat off to this committed man, who has been so versatile right up to the ripe old age of almost 87, i.e. right up to the present day, and who has hardly changed in appearance in the past 30 years.
What timing – to announce your new record on the same day as Dean & Britta & Sonic Boom’s album… I’ll let you in on a little secret: I ordered this record first. If you are new to this blog, you may be new to Sunturns, and I’m a little jealous of you. There are two previous records full of wonderful, original indiepop Christmas songs for you to discover. Comprised of members of Monzano, Making Marks, Little Hands of Asphalt, Moddi, and Einar Stray Orchestra, this crew has been killing it since 2011 – which predates this blog! Hell, you might say that they were part of the reason I started this thing… not enough folks were talking about Sunturns! Well, 2024 brings us Christmas III, compiling several tracks they’ve released in the years after Vol 1 & 2, while also gifting us a whole fistful of brand new songs. I’m incredibly excited about this one – and boy does that vinyl look pretttttty. Of note, if you haven’t bought Vol. 1 & 2 on vinyl… it appears they are down to 2 copies on Fika’s website. I nearly bought one today so I could have a backup copy…
There’s a rather extensive press release on their Bandcamp page – I’d say go there and check it out to further pump yourself up for December 6th. I will highlight one paragraph below that I found particularly useful (and endearing):
If previous albums Christmas I (2011) and II (2015) are somewhat different from each other, then Christmas III represents a fusion of the two. Sunturns’ debut is full of youthful exuberance and was recorded with plentiful overdubs in Oslo, while 2015’s follow up is more pensive and somewhat darker, and was recorded live during one week in the Swedish forests. Einar elaborates: “I love making records like this: short, effective sessions with limited time and therefore no bland ‘perfection’. There’s a nerve to knowing you can collectively bring it all together without the luxury of time”. Christmas III represents a return to the lighter tone, on at least some of the songs, but with the wisdom of age that emerged on the second. You can’t just return to your twenties, however much you might want to!
“You can’t just return to your twenties, however much you might want to!”
There are a few places that I look to every year, reliable sources of interesting Christmas music that you can count on to make this humble Christmas blogger’s life just a bit easier. Germany’s Platiruma!!! Records are most certainly one of those sources. After a few singles, largely by the label’s founder and spiritual leader, Sebastian Voss (aka The Fisherman and His Soul), the label released a wonderful 4-song E.P. by Herr Wade last year. The label appears to be slowly creeping toward a full-length Christmas record, as this year they dropped Plati-Holy!-Ruma!!! A Christmas Hit EP, a 6-track Christmas EP. From top to bottom, this E.P. is top-notch German indiepop Christmas. I’m going to pull out a few tracks, as I have made it a practice not to cover every song, as that is a precedent I am fleeing in terror from.
The leadoff track by Hamburg’s theCatherines shines with jangly guitars and a great message, reflected in the title “This Year My Wishlist Only Says ‘Peace.'” For the curious listener, you can find an additional, 7-track Christmas EP, TEENY•TINY•XMAS (EP), over at theCatherines Bandcamp – well worth checking out too.
A collaboration between Jørn Åleskjær (The Loch Ness Mouse, Monobird, Sapphire & Steel) and Sebastian Voss (Nah…, The Fisherman and his Soul, Cinema Engines), the Herr Wade track, “Bis Ich Leb´ (Til I Live)” channels the Christmas crooners of the past with its warm, emotional vocals and ornate instrumentation, full of chimes and swelling synthesized strings.
This is a lot more to love here, with two strong instrumentals by Guelpe and Berlin’s Martin Tetzlaff, a sweet folky tune by Nero Bates, as well as a 2023 remix of The Fisherman and His Soul’s stellar “A Christmas Tree Bright as a Lighthouse.” Revisiting this song was interesting, as the chorus seems to hit harder today than it had originally: “… and there’s a Christmas tree bright as a lighthouse / despite the fucked up world situation / we’ll see a quiver in anticipation / now it’s Christmas time.” This is my favorite kind of indiepop – serious shit disguised amongst some incredibly fun music – sneaking in the door as you bob your head.
Bottom Line: Platiruma!!! expands their holiday offerings with an extremely solid Christmas EP. Looking forward to the full-length… hehe.
Want a little bit of hope? It can feel like an uphill climb, that is for sure. Thankfully, we have the return of Sunturns, one of the preeminent seasonal supergroups (there are more than one!!). Comprised of members of Monzano, Making Marks, Little Hands of Asphalt, Moddi, and Einar Stray Orchestra, they get together every year or so to record some beautiful, original Christmas music. This year’s release is the absolutely lovely “New Snow,” which features Sjur on vocals, as well as Michael Barrett Donovan on bass and violin, Lars Lundevall (of the deLillos) on guitar, as well as much of the Sunturns crew. The song begins by acknowledging the shit we have all just lived through, but the turn from “puke in the snow” towards the hope of the future is simply wonderful.
I’ve been hitting these blue notes Now there’s puke in the new snow I’ve been feeling so down low These past few years.
I’ve been going through these phases Where everything changes and we felt like strangers These past few years.
But it’s not supposed to be this way We’re putting it on display With the darkest observations there in the light of day.
Here’s a rhetoric I want you to stay.
Erased it all with a few strokes Hopeful footprints in new snow. I’d been getting so down low. These past few years.
Moving on through the ages We’ll be up on stages Singing everything changes These next few years.
That turn where he sings “Here’s a rhetoric / I want you to stay,” comes with this beautiful brass line… and the tone switch is just gorgeous. Reminds me of the more orchestral leanings of Jens Lekman, which is a wonderful thought to spark. Quite beautiful indeed.
Bottom Line: Sunturns return with that bit of hope we all need.
Jørn Åleskjær (The Loch Ness Mouse, Monobird, Sapphire & Steel) and Sebastian Voss (Nah…, The Fisherman and his Soul, Cinema Engines) have teamed up for some cross-cultural, Google-translatable Christmas tunes. I speak ein bisschen Deutsch, and no Norweigain, but I do speak indiepop and this is some lovely stuff. I’ve featured The Fisherman and his Soul multiple times here on Christmas Underground, so I knew there would be something here I was likely to really connect with. Perhaps it is my faint familiarity with the language that draws me to the German-language tracks, but I have to take special note of “Und sie tanzen I’m Himmel,” which translates to “And they dance in the sky.” I’m going to continue to utilize Google translate, so please give me some grace should Google screw it up a bit – but I loved these sweet lyrics.
can you remember? It’s been a few years… We looked up at the sky and Then you said to me:
“I know a secret And I’m happy to let you in on it.” And I nodded, agreed, and suddenly it started snowing.
“Exactly! Here, that’s the point.” You said in a low voice. “Every single flake is a little dancer. And up there in the sky they dance day in and day out. And when they feel like it, it starts to snow.”
And they dance in the sky
The track also had that mid-tempo, jangly indiepop groove that I need at least every 3-6 months to survive, so that certainly plays into my love of this track as well. There are wonderful moments in the other songs as well, little choices like the beautiful banjo in “Domino,” and the sweetness of the leadoff track, “You’ve Come A Very Long Way (For Being Such A Close Friend),” are undeniable.
Bottom Line: There is a lot to love in a tiny little EP.
This record caught me completely off guard. The keyboardist and co-writer for most of the iconic hits from Norway’s pop-powerhouse a-ha, Magne Furuholmen has created one of the most interesting Christmas records I have heard in years. He walks this fine line between the avant-garde and accessible and manages to pull it off incredibly well. An album packed largely with originals, Magne did not intend to create a normal holiday album; he wanted to make an album that was “an antidote to the ‘schmaltzy Christmas-music which is spewed out every year… a seemingly never-ending stream of cheesy versions of existing Christmas song.'” It was as if Magne was creating a Christmas music for me.
This album can be heartbreakingly beautiful. There are moments, such as in the leadoff track “There Goes Another Year,” where you can find these simple, evocative phrases that just hit you. “In the darkness of December / as the fire turned from spark to ember (<-Wow, what a line) / these are things I will remember / now xmas time is here / there goes another year.” And yet again, later in the song: “What we say but do not mean / every word and in-between / for every manhole in this town / there is someone falling down (<-Damn, loved that line!).” As you can see, Magne is going deep here, not necessarily celebrating the holiday in a fashion one might expect, as he talks about the album as being for those who might not have someone to keep them warm at Christmas.
I wanted to try and make an album which would be meaningful also to those who fall outside our commercial Christmas frenzy – an album which looks at the more melancholic, darker sides to Christmas: broken family ties, things we sweep under the rug, resentment hidden behind fake, jocular smiles – an album for holiday contemplation, not just sentimental decor.’
Magne does not rely on a spectacular voice (I have never been partial to amazing singers, but rather, amazing songwriters), he lets the synths and his lyrics do the heavy lifting. However, every so often his vocal melody just gets me. Like in the hungover “A Punch-up on Boxing Day,” Magne’s voice rises just after that first stanza, “you’re just wasting your time / yyeeaaahhhh,” and it brings this emotion to the song that I wasn’t anticipating. There are other moments where the music makes you sit up and go “shit, that is fantastic,” such as in the final verse of “Caprice Des Dieux,” which is one of the more slow and contemplative tracks on the record, as it explodes with musical color.
There are a few outliers on here as well, songs that does not appear to be connected to Christmas at all. The best example of would be “This is Now America,” a harsh portrait of America from an observer’s perspective – school shootings, border walls, drones and bad loans. “This is now America / oh how little have we learned / This is now America, is there no way to return?” So… not a Christmas song, and damn, quite disheartening to hear how we appear to others.
There are two covers on the record, AC/DC’s “Hell’s Bells” and The Kinks’ “Father Christmas.” The AC/DC cover appears to be part of the aforementioned outlier collection of songs, songs that aren’t normally connected to Christmas, but Magne is determined to bring them into conversation with the emotions of the season. The treatment itself is pretty damn interesting. Slowed down with synths providing a haunting melody, this is AC/DC much more along the lines of Mark Kozelek’s versions, should Mark have also utilized autotune. The Kinks’ cover is going to be released to the streaming community on a later date… so you’ll have to check back on that one.
This record is a damn interesting listen, one that I’d encourage anyone to experience, and hopefully with multiple listens. I for one, most certainly found new moments that I appreciated the second and third time around. Of note, Magne is also a very accomplished visual artist, and there is a vinyl edition of 200 that he hand-painted. They look to be truly beautiful, and if I had an extra €150… I might grab one. (Wait… they are all gone now!)
Bottom Line: One of the most surprising and satisfying Christmas albums I have heard in a long time.
Christmas Underground 
