Jason & Liana Stone - Oh Christmas!

Oh Christmas is a short but sweet release by Jason & Liana Stone.  A beautiful version of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas", done with nothing but acoustic guitar and vocals, leads the EP off.  Up next is a great medley of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen/We Three Kings".  This seems to be a copy of the medley done by Barenaked Ladies' (as a duet with Sarah McLachlan) on their Barenaked for the Holidays album - at least, I haven't heard these two songs done together like this anywhere else.  In any case, they do a phenomenal job of emulating that medley, right down to the stand up bass and harmonized vocals.  Closing the EP is a gorgeous new arrangement of "O Little Town of Bethlehem", which once again strips things down to nothing but acoustic guitar and vocals; this is perhaps the most unique version of this song that I've ever heard.

The entire EP clocks in at just over 13 minutes and is a great listen if you're looking for something on the mellow side of things.  Happy listening!

URL:

https://www.noisetrade.com/jasonandlianastone

High Street Hymns - "Christmas & Advent Songs"

Christmas & Advent Songs is a sampler of, well, Christmas and Advent songs by High Street Hymns.  While listening to it, I thought it was an EP, but a closer look at the download page indicated that it is in fact a selection of songs from a longer album.  It's one heck of a sampler, though, so it's well worth a post and a listen (or three or four).

The genre on the download page is listed as folk/acoustic, but there's a lot more going on here than that would imply.  "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" is performed beautifully, starting with nothing but acoustic guitar and vocals and gradually building to a powerful crescendo with drums and electric guitar before coming right back to where it started.  "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is a real surprise - the rapid guitar strumming and snapping percussion give it a somewhat aggressive edge; I'm actually reminded of Johnny Cash's version of "God's Gonna Cut You Down" when listening to it.  "In the Bleak Midwinter" is always one of my favourite Christmas songs, and this version, while more straightforward, is still very nicely done.  I was initially disappointed with "Love Came Down at Christmas", mainly because I was expecting something along the lines of Shawn Colvin's version, but subsequent listens have revealed the charms of this version as well.  I think that's one of the things I love most about Christmas music - everyone is free to put their own stamp on these songs, and if you're willing to do a bit of digging, there are some truly great gems to be found.

Okay, by my clock I have about 14 minutes left to post this if I want to get it up today, so I'd better go and do that now.  I hope you've been enjoying this year's crop of free Christmas music so far, and I'll be back soon with some more.  Happy listening!

URL:

https://www.noisetrade.com/highstreethymns

Jed Luckless - Hundred Year Hall, December 23, 2009

Last year on December 23, Jed Luckless performed an incredible concert consisting of nothing but Christmas music.  That concert can now be downloaded from the Internet Archive.

The performance is practically a one-stop shopping resource for contemporary Christmas music, starting with "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch," and moving through favourites like "Winter Wonderland," "Blue Christmas," "Feliz Navidad," John Lennon's "Happy Xmas," and "Little Drummer Boy."  I am a huge fan of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, so I was delighted to find a few songs from that movie on here, namely the title track, "Silver and Gold," and "Holly Jolly Christmas."  He also manages to combine music from two of my favourite Christmas specials by including a little snippet of "Linus & Lucy" (from A Charlie Brown Christmas) in the middle of "Frosty the Snowman."   There is even a great version of Adam Sandler's "The Hannukah Song" near the end of the show.  All of the songs are mostly done on just acoustic guitar and vocals, and they are all performed extremely well.  This is the kind of album that can be listened to in a variety of situations throughout the Christmas season.

I came across a little windfall of Christmas music last night in the form of a dozen releases from NoiseTrade, the site where I originally heard of the Sara Groves album.  That brings my total number of potential releases to write about up to 37 - in other words. I now officially have more than enough music to write about from now until Christmas, making my goal theoretically possible for the first time.  Happy listening (and a Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers)!

URL:

http://www.archive.org/details/jed2009-12-23

Album Spotlight: James Edwards - Christmas Bells

James Edwards' recently released Christmas Bells album is a collection of ten traditional Christmas songs arranged for solo classical guitar.  The end result is stunning in its simplicity.  For the most part, the arrangements are very faithful to the source material, but they are played with a great flair that makes them well worth listening to, no matter how many times you may have heard some of these songs before.

Even though it is not reflected in the titles, a lot of these songs are actually medleys of two or three songs.  For example, "Silent Night" begins with "The First Noel", and "A Merry Christmas" has elements of "Good King Wenceslas" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".  I love medleys, and although these are short, they are still fun to listen to.

Christmas Bells is the type of album that can work in a variety of situations.  It makes great background music, but the songs are so well performed that you can hear new things in them each time you listen to them.  Personally, I have found that it makes wonderful lullaby music for putting my 2 year old to sleep.  However you choose to listen to it, I hope it helps to make your Christmas a little more special.  Happy listening!

URL:
http://www.jamendo.com/en/album/56082

Album Spotlight: In Mansions - Peace on Earth

Every year, I end up downloading much more Christmas music than I have time to write about.  Sometimes I don't even get a chance to listen to it before Christmas.  I always hang on to it, though, and usually it ends up being some of the first music I put into my Christmas playlist the following year.  In Mansions' Peace On Earth was initially released on Christmas Day, 2008, so I never got a chance to listen to it last year.  I finally heard it for the first time last week, absolutely loved it, and began writing a blog post about it almost immediately.  I had a moment of panic when I realized that the EP was no longer available; however, I sent an email to the author of the site where it was posted (who also happens to be one of the artists on the EP), and a new link went live just a couple of days ago.

 

In Mansions is a duo consisting of Tara Ward and Graham Travis, and their arrangements and performances on Peace On Earth are smart, creative and very beautiful.  My favourite song is the medley, "Bring A Torch Jeanette Isabella / O Come All Ye Faithful".  "Bring A Torch Jeanette Isabella" is a song that I was not familiar with, but their version is absolutely gorgeous.  Every year I seem to discover at least one Christmas song that I had not heard before and then spend some time exploring different versions of it.  This will probably be one of those songs this year - the only problem is that I can't imagine any other versions being able to top this one, as it really is that beautiful!  The way it transitions into "O Come All Ye Faithful" is very nicely done.

 

Another highlight is an upbeat version of "Joy to the World" that is driven by acoustic guitar.  I also really love the version of "For Unto Us a Child is Born", which comes fom Handel's Messiah; they give it a very delicate arrangement, and I find Tara's vocals to be a little reminiscent of Sarah McLachlan.  The entire EP is well worth hearing - so far, I think I have listened to it more than anything else this Christmas season, and I only came across it about a week ago (it was in some files that I had backed up while trying to save my computer from a malware infection).  Please go check it out, and let me know what you think of it.  Happy listening!

 

URL:

http://belovedschurch.org/2009/12/02/in-mansions/

Album Spotlight: Oh, Starling - "Joy"

I will be the first to admit that I can be rather enthusiastic about Christmas music.  I listen to it at times of the year that are just unthinkable to some people.  In November of one year, I was listening to some Christmas music on my lunch break at work when someone commented on it, basically wondering why I was listening to it when it wasn't even close to Christmas.  When I tried to explain that I just liked the way it sounds, I received a response along the lines of "Well, you've obviously never worked in a retail environment at Christmas."  I guess the implication was that the endless repetition of Christmas music in stores at this time of year is enough to make anyone sick of it.

Now, I have nothing at all against this attitude or the person who said it (in fact, he may be reading this on Facebook right now).  In fact, I can understand how being forced to listen to anything repetetively can turn someone off from it.  However, over the last three Christmases (oh wow, is this really my fourth year doing the free Christmas music thing?), I have had the opportunity to listen to a lot of different takes on Christmas music, and I can't help but think that if people were exposed to some of these unusual arrangements of otherwise familiar songs, they might be a little more accepting toward the whole idea of Christmas music.  Of course, I could be totally wrong about that, but at least I enjoy it, and I gather from some of the comments and emails that I receive that my readers enjoy it too.

Oh, Starling have made their EP, Joy, available for free for a limited time.  On it, they have crafted some very refreshing arrangements of five familiar Christmas songs; refreshing, but no so radically different that they could not be enjoyed on the radio, or yes, even in stores that are playing Christmas music.  The acoustic instrumentation and slowed down tempos give a very relaxed feel to songs like "Joy (To the World)", "Silent Night", and "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear".  Each song is given a lot of breathing room, and a lot of them are given extended bridges and choruses.  It's a great little release to listen to when you'd like to relax for a while, especially as things start to get really hectic in the weeks leading up to Christmas.  You're not likely to hear these songs playing over the PA of your favourite store, so it might be a good idea to load them onto an MP3 player for your own personal listening; it would be hard to feel rushed while listening to these beautiful renditions of familiar Christmas songs.

Joy will be free for a limited time - one article I read about it said only until US Thanksgiving - so you should go download it now if you're interested at all.  The form on the site asks for quite a bit of information (email address, first name, country, city, and zip code, to be precise), so I would recommend reading the privacy agreement if you're at all paranoid about giving that kind of information out.  They did send me a couple of emails, but it is worth noting that the download link appeared on the site after I submitted the form - it was not emailed to me.  You can choose between MP3 and AAC formats; I chose MP3, which yielded a 37.3 MB zip file.  Happy listening!

http://ohstarling.bkstageshare.com/joy