Sara Groves - O Holy Night Tour- Live: The Prison Show

O Holy Night Tour- Live: The Prison Show is a recording of Sara Groves performing for the women of an Illinois prison.  Not all of the songs are Christmas songs, but most of them are, and they are performed so beautifully as to make the album a must-hear for anyone who loves Christmas music.  You will need to enter your email and postal code in the little widget on her website to get the album; if you're okay with that, you'll receive a download code for the album in your email inbox.

I always love hearing new arrangements of familiar songs, and most of the Christmas songs on this album have been radically reworked; "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" is probably my favourite of these, although the chorus of "Angels We Have Heard on High" gets a beautiful treatment as well.  That chorus gets turned into a singalong at the end of the song, with the audience enthusiastically participating.  The following song, simply titled "Carols", is a medley of Christmas carols performed entirely as a singalong with the audience.

In case you're keeping count, this is day 2 of my 32 days of free Christmas music.  I did manage to download a few more albums last night, bringing the total of potential posts up to about 24 - still not quite what I need to accomplish my goal, but I'm getting there!  Enjoy this album, and I'll have something else for you to listen to really soon.  Happy listening!

URL:

http://www.saragroves.com/

Album Spotlight: VNDVR XMSEP

Hello there, and welcome back to Free Christmas Music for another season!  Those of you who follow my other music blog may know that I've been on a rather extended hiatus from blogging, but I'm hopeful that the Christmas season, and all of the wonderful music that usually accompanies it, will help me to snap out of that.  Today I came up with a somewhat crazy idea to help get myself back into the blogging habit: I am going to attempt to make at least one new post on this blog every day until Christmas.  By my count, that should make for at least 32 posts (33 if I can keep going until Christmas Day).  This idea is crazy on a number of levels: I've never even come close to writing 32 posts on this blog in one Christmas season, even when starting earlier in the year than this; I'm still busy with work and other things (and the Christmas season itself will no doubt bring even more things to occupy my time) and don't have tons of time to write blog posts; and, perhaps craziest of all, I don't even have 32 things to write about yet - a quick look at my playlist and downloads folder shows 18 potential albums and/or singles to write about.

So if you're willing to accept the fact that I am attempting something completely unprecedented, for which I have little time and even less material, then by all means, feel free to join me for the next 32 days - I'm sure there will be lots of great music, and most likely a few surprises, along the way.

First up is a little EP that I actually came across late last year during my search for new versions of "Auld Lang Syne".  The name of the EP is VNDVR XMSEP; I guess this is a vowelless version of "Vandaveer Xmas EP", since it is a Christmas EP by "alt-folk song-singing/record making/globetrotting project," Vandaveer.  I didn't download the whole EP at the time, but I loved the version of "Auld Lang Syne," so I made a note to come back to it this year.  I did, and it ended up being pretty much as awesome as I'd thought it would be.  All three songs (the other two are "The Little Drummer Boy" and "Silent Night") have a very relaxed feel to them, with very sparse instrumentation and some beautiful interplay between the male and female vocals.

I'm sure I won't always be relaxed over the next 32 days, so this is an oddly appropriate album to start with.  I hope you enjoy it, and I'll be back again tomorrow (and the day after that, and the day after that...) with something else for you.  Happy listening!

URL:

http://www.vandaveer.net/music/

Help choose the songs for this year's Christmas EP from Joel Rakes

Poll: what christmas songs do you want to see on this year's christmas EP? (pick 5)