Starring
Ben Folds, Dean and Britta, Fazerdaze, Lovejoy, Porij, TessParks, Xeno and Oaklander
The Front Runners
A Peace Of Us : Dean & Britta, Sonic Boom
Deck the halls and ring the bells. Dean & Britta, in partnership with Sonic Boom, have made the best new Christmas album for some time.
What makes it special? Well, they’ve taken it seriously for a start. It’s made with a feeling for what makes Christmas special. Quickly, on ‘Pretty Paper’, they capture a feeling of impending and slightly unsettling magic in the air. They balance new songs about what Christmas means today - a time for kindness and making amends - with traditional songs that spell C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S in all but letters.
Let’s unwrap those gifts slowly, with appreciation and gratitude.
Like the best spread of presents around a tree there’s something for everyone. We start with ‘Snow Is Falling In Manhattan’. It’s wonky but memorable, a song that will be listenable at any time of the year. ‘Do you Know How Christmas Trees Are Made’ is a song for the ages, sweet and sentimental. ‘You’re All I Want For Christmas’ offers its country twang to everyone. And if you’re more inclined to the scarier side of Christmas ghosts and redemption, try ‘Little Altar Boy’.
Then there’s the traditional Christmas covers given a complete makeover and refit. ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ - if only - may be a safe choice but it fits the tone of the album perfectly. The medley of ‘’Peace On Earth’ / Little Drummer Boy’ works as well as the version by Bowie and Bing, and encapsulates both sides of this album. It’s a mix of traditional feelings under an electronic wash. ‘Greensleeves’ is beautifully transformed into ‘Silver Snowflakes’ and the German round of ‘Stille Nacht’ is worth the price of admission alone.
It's a calm and sober album, stripped back to make for a cosy and intimate affair. Most importantly there’s nothing here that you’ll be taking back to the shops as an unwanted gift on Boxing Day.
Taster Track : Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?
( Footnote : It wasn't until I downloaded this video that I realised that the original version of thos song, by Nina, featured in the James Bond film 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service.)
… And It’s Love : Lovejoy
I loved this. Their first album in nineteen years, Lovejoy’s take on love and loss is magical.
This is the kind of album that poses a dilemma for me. I want to shout about it from the rooftops with a megaphone, but I also want to hug it delightedly to my chest as my wonderful secret. It’s an album to make you feel good that your love of pop is not misplaced. It validates your passion and offers hope for the future as if something that may have sometimes felt like a waste of time still has the hope of a glorious future.
Lovejoy don’t confine themselves to a narrow genre but magpie away influences from jangle, dream pop and a myriad of more other specific influences. This is a bittersweet resting place of influences from Belle and Sebastian, through the rosters of Marina and Sarah records and, most strongly, The Field Mice but with a fuller sound.
They’ve passed the first flush of youth to become less idealistic and naive, more reflective and appreciative. They’re middle aged romantics. On ‘Miss You’ they intone “There’s only one thing worth living for, and it’s love.” This is a song (and an album) that aches. It yearns. It recognises that love exhsudts you and reminds you that there is nothing more important.
Maybe it helps that Lovejoy also trigger a spasm of bittersweet nostalgia for past feelings and ignite a hope that all is never lost in matters of the heart.
Lovejoy. They should be huge. They’re not, but treasure them as something very special.
Taster Track : … And It’s Love
Pomegranate : Tess Parks
Tess Parks embraces the world of psychedelia in an appealing and surprisingly relaxing set of songs.
Settling down for the ride with ‘Bagpipe Blues’ I was taken aback by its fully fledged willingness to leap into the muddied waters of psychedelia. Sometimes acts are willing to wear psychedelic influences on their sleeve, but shy of adopting them as their defining characteristic. Not Tess Parks. Here you have the full menu of psychedelia. Here are the distorted guitars. Over there you’ll find the obligatory dose of woodwind. Just around the corner is the bass holding it all together and providing the song’s rolling momentum. And it’s all washed in a fuzzy, droning flavour.
It could be a mess, but it’s not because it’s wonderfully staged and produced. Every element is allowed to stand alone and to make its own impact. It feels like another world, a trip to Disneyland as an adult. I didn’t expect to enjoy songs such as ‘Koalas’, Crown Shy’ and ‘Running Home to Sing’ quite as much.
You can’t avoid the link between psychedelia and drugs, and her vocals sound pleasantly stoned inviting you to join her on the trip. The music wraps and twirls itself around you. It's like the cosmic sounds of Rose City Band or Crumb, and it’s seriously relaxing.
The run up to Christmas can be a stressful time. Listen to this if you want to reboot and feel that you’re in control once more.
Taster Track : Running Home To Sing
The Chasing Pack
Sleigher : Ben Folds
It’s Christmas! And here’s Ben Folds with an almost exclusively lounge collection of strong Christmas songs that help to while away the time very pleasantly until the day itself.
I say ‘almost’ because you never know what you’re going to get with Ben Folds. In the past he’s dug deep into the frantic, off kilter power pop of the early albums and songs like ‘One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces’. He’s plunged the depths of unbearable sadness and he’s built a repertoire of serious, orchestrated music. He’s a man who can hint at Christmas serial killers in the title of this collection but deliver the child friendly, heart warming tale of ‘The Bell That Couldn’t Jingle’.
Christmas songs and albums can go one of two ways. They can be throwaway affairs, not really taken seriously by the artist or they can be invested with the kind of care and attention paid to their best records. Ben Folds is definitely one of the latter group.
For the most part, these are songs that would be at home in the cocktail lounge at a sophisticated office party, starting with ‘Sleepwalking Through Christmas’. There’s a barely borne sadness in the tone of ‘Me and Maurice’ if not the content. In ‘Waiting For Snow’ he captures the child’s anticipation for the inevitable that is, nevertheless, taking its time to arrive. Of course, there’s a traditional song waiting there - ‘A Christmas Song’, all quietly strummed guitar, tinkling piano and brief harmonica. It’s a homely and lovely version.
Inevitably, he can’t resist a sly and restless undermining of the norm. ‘Xmas Aye Eye’ is about A.I. writing a song for him. It doesn’t, but a sample cliched line - “You are the star at the top of my tree” - shows what he fears may be coming. It’s redeemed by the humanity of the following song ‘You Don’t Have To Be A Santa Claus’ which reminds us that kindness is not just for Christmas.
This is the musical equivalent of the black and white Christmas movies from Hollywood’s golden age. It’s for fans of ‘The Snowman’ rather than Slade. It’s also for fans of a proper Christmas album.
Toaster Track : Sleepwalking Through Christmas
Soft Power : Fazerdaze
Fazerdaze’s second album of dream pop, with the accent on pop, is a follow up seven years in the making. It’s well worth the wait.
Seven years is a long time between albums, particularly at the start of your career. Fazerdaze can explain. After her 2017 debut album she was burned out by touring and the paraphernalia of promotion. She placed music on a five year hiatus. The pandemic struck. She endured some not very nice relationships. From 2021 a number of appearances on others’ albums brought her back into the spotlight, and in 2022 she finally released a new EP’s worth of her songs. In 2024 she releases this album and tours to promote it. It’s been a struggle, hard work and, unsurprisingly, it’s changed her.
She’s grown up. Where once, a song like ‘Lucky Girl’ pointed the way to a sunlit, pure pop future, now her sights are set on making songs that have more weight behind them. Now, rather than aiming at Kim Wilde, it’s someone like Lucy Dacus who’s in her sights. If the invitation came to join boygenius she’d believe she could fit in easily.
That’s understandable. This is a much more mature record, more alternative than her debut. She’s kept a foot in the world of pure pop, but she’s sucked out some of its sunny simplicity. Effects and treatments abound, but when you realise that you can find the magic that’s in the phrasing, vocals and melodies of, say, ‘In Blue’. If I was a psychologist - I’m not - I’d say she’s using her experiences of the last seven years without losing her gift for accessible and welcoming music.
There’s a moment that shouldn’t be significant but is. In ‘City Glitter’ she sings of driving through the streets. It’s such an ordinary line. She’s not been broken by her experiences, she’s functioning and she’s producing the alchemy to take life and transform it into great music. Another example is how ‘Distorted Dreams’ tugs you to and fro. Like Blondie sandwiching ‘Fade Away and Radiate’ between ‘Picture This’ and ‘Pretty Baby’ on Parallel Lines, Fazerdaze accommodates pop and art in the same album.
And that’s a success to celebrate - a grounded, talented musician facing personal challenges but growing up to make an album of excellent, accessible dream pop.
Taster Track : In Blue
Teething - Porij
This is an album of gentle beats that’s perfect for warming up the incoming club crowd or Coldplay audience.
If that sounds like damning with faint praise, it’s unintentional. They have, in fact, supported Coldplay and that’s a massive statement in itself. They were the opening act at their Manchester shows behind Chvrches. And at one level that was a good choice. They’re smooth enough for the one gig a year brigade and, at the moment, they’re never going to pose a threat to the headliner. This is music to help settle down the crowd in a big venue that’s by no means full yet.
Songs transition seamlessly, one to another. ‘Marmite’ is an exception, mainly for the repeated swear word. Later on you may be stirred to limber up, tap a foot and loosen up your shoulders to ‘You Should Know Me’. There are ideas in ‘Slow Down’ that bode well for the future, its more stripped back treatment allowing glimmers of the band beneath. ‘Ghost’ does its job well too. It’s the kind of song that’s made for the gentler club and chart culture, excellent for placement on compilations and playlists as a means of increasing profile.
Their most interesting feature is Egg’s voice. It’s distinctive, but distinctive for sounding very feminine. The vocals on ‘Marmite’ sound like the sainted Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne if she ever lost her cool enough to swear. It’s not the strongest U.S.P. to say that you sound like someone else even when it’s a surprising comparison and a fulsome compliment.
There’s nothing wrong with these songs at all, but taking a few more risks would unveil their undoubted potential within.
As it stands, unlike Marmite, there’s nothing here to trigger a strong reaction.
Taster Track : Ghost
Via Negativa (in the doorway light) : Xeno and Oaklander
I sincerely hoped to find something to love in this album, described as minimalist electronica. Sadly, I didn’t like it at all.
It’s billed as a retro homage to the 60th anniversary of the Moog synthesiser. That’s an encouraging idea, a promising starting point. Think of the early synthesiser groups - Kraftwerk, OMD, The Human League - still favourites all these years later. Now listen to what Xeno and Oaklander do with the genre.
This felt like arriving at a party late and being punished by demands to join in immediately, before buying a drink at the bar, settling yourself down and gauging the tone of the event. Like a chairlift that’s moving too quickly to sit in, this isn’t giving me a reason, or helping me, to join in.
You’re tipped straight into the action, with ‘Via Negativa (in the doorway light)’ joining at something that sounds like the crescendo of the song. It has nowhere to go and, more significantly, little to take you with it. Where’s the melody? Where’s the varying texture afforded by even the earliest synths? Where’s the sense of an atmosphere?
This is a high n-rg record that simply leaves me twitching to be somewhere else. It’s also disappointingly thin, in a way that the original synths were not. ‘O Vermillion’ is less frantic, but it can’t prevent the rest of the record sounding like an exercise in running around shouting at people not to panic.
I know. This is harsh, and it’s probably me, not them. Here’s a link to a review in the more sober Financial Times for a second opinion. Xeno and Oaklander. I’m off to make a soothing cup of chamomile tea.
Taster Track : O Vermillion
Playlists
As ever this week's Taster Track playlists can be accessed at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7cSveL7NpVp1xgrKxPe4av?si=SkFlSnvySeuYFpgG0WJFmA or via the Spotify link on the Home Page.
The link to the Youtube playlist is https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwV-OogHy7Eh_sy55y6i18Qj7w_Z3CQft
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