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[click on any album cover to open it up in youtube music]
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I’m a longtime subscriber to the idea No Christmas Music Until After Thanksgiving but . . . Christmas music is great. And that rule allows, like, a month to fit it all in. That’s crazy!
So I’d like to promote a compromise. Certain kinds of Christmas music, I’m proposing, may be played after Halloween.
I’ll suggest three albums as type species and perhaps we can extrapolate from there.
(Note: I’m not considering classical music in this discussion. I think a good mass or the Messiah can be played any day of the year, even if humming for unto us a child is given does seem pretty darn Christmassy.)
I can’t remember how I came across this album but I listened to pretty much nonstop last December. I wrote about it for Ships of Hagoth and I’m probably going to pitch a second write-up before the season’s over.
I love their sound, first of all. Sometimes neopagan, sometimes Nineties shoegaze, sometimes Twin Peaks closing credits—all those sometimes add up to something amazing.
The songs cover the traveling magi, Santa Claus, holiday kisses, lighting candles in an old Church—proper holiday stuff. But at first listen, this doesn’t sound very “Christmas.” You won’t catch immediate references to Bing Crosby or Nat King Cole or Andy Williams. Doesn’t sound like those fellas at all.
But as you listen to it and let it seep into your soundscape, the more it’s pure winter essence clarifies.
I don’t know who’s editing the Smoke Fairies’ Wikipedia pages, but they’re clearly a fan and someday a spoilsport will probably get them blocked and decimate the pages. (Don’t use italics, lil editor!)
But at the moment they have more interesting quotations than one might expect for a niche band.
Like this from “the band”: “…writing about the winter seemed to come pretty naturally to us, regardless of what was happening outside. There’s so much to say about that time of year. It’s an interesting combination — the way it was recorded, the time it was recorded (in the summer), and the subject matter. I think it’s produced something quite strange out of all of that.”
Or these from critics: “Smoke Fairies resist the chintz of traditional festive sonics, instead using spectral guitars and sprawling desert-rock soundscapes.” / “…wrapping dense guitars alongside spectral harmonies and Krautrock grooves for a collection that feels wintry but definitely not festive.” / “‘Three Kings’ rides a danceable bassline and ‘Bad Good’ sits awkwardly on Santa’s knee (”Have you been bad/Or have you been good?”) before the plaintive melody on ‘Nothing To Divide Us’ ends a record that, despite bleak inspiration, leaves a warm feeling.”
It’s a fabulous record.
I’ve written about Low’s Christmas before and Ships of Hagoth has written tons so I won’t spill as much here, so let me just say that although this isn’t all originals ala Wild Winter, even though it’s got stuff like “Blue Christmas” and “The Little Drummer Boy” on it, this album distrupts our understanding of what Christmas music can be.
It’s no wonder the one Christmas song indie bands cover is Low’s “Just Like Christmas.” It manages to tell us something true about the holidays that music so often overlooks. And it does it with lyrics only barely above their usual minimalism.
If you know about this movie, you likely only have a vague memory that it was a notorious flop. Even with Oscar nominations for art direction and costumes, it hasn’t become anyone else’s cult classic. Best I know, I’m still alone in the Toys cult.
I really dig the movie but the soundtrack is, in my opinion, one of the greatest albums of all time. I kid you not. If I were asked to submit my votes to the next Rolling Stones top 500 albums I might not include any soundtracks as a matter of principle but, if I did, the only ones getting serious consideration are Toys, The Muppet Movie, and Bambi.
Lady Steed was recently on a Reddit page or a Facebook group or something of Tori Amos fans and they were having a discussion about having an obscure song as your favorite and she was disgusted by all these tourists thinking their faves were in the least bit obscure. She suggested I hop on and claim “Happy Workers”—now that’s obscure. She doubted most those bozos had any idea it existed.
And what a shame. Because it is awesome.
The soundtrack (slash movie) starts with a holiday concert and spends most of its time in a parallel universe’s Santa’s Workshop and while it’s hard to claim with absolute confidence this is a quote Christmas movie unquote it definitely is. And the soundtrack even more so. It has the vibes. By which I mean the complex and layered mix of nostalgia, longing, joy, and loss that all three of these albums have.
In short, while I could be satisfied by a playlist filled with “Bleak Midwinters,” these three albums engage in that classic’s brand of piercing strangeness, but spread it out through soundscapes and heartpangs in order to examine the beauty of and need for Christmas.
One month isn’t enough for the full breadth of heart-pumped blood proper celebration demands.
Might as well get started now.
smoke fairies on spotify / amazon / itunes
low on spotify / amazon / itunes / bandcamp
toys (sorry—you’ll have to stick with youtube as linked on the album cover)
