Christmas time may well be imminent, and
the goose might verily be getting on the girthy side, but something has been
missing from our hallowed winter festival the past few years: the worth-its-weight-in-solid-gold-vinyl
Christmas Record.
London's fastest-rising indie label Highline
Records is here to fill this festive chasm, with a
whole compilation jam-packed with bona fide original Christmas
classics-in-waiting, featuring a host of luminaries including Piney Gir, Art Brut's Eddie Argos, and The
Real Tuesday Weld.
Says label head
Heather Willensky, "I've been obsessed by Phil Spector's Christmas album
since I was a youngster and thought it would be great to bring everyone in our
Highline circle together to create something festive."
Kicking off with LA-based chanteuse Correatown's gentle, woozily joyous 'Christmas
Time Is Here,' the album segues into an accordion-laced romp courtesy of the
fantastically-monikered Skipple and the Pipples before
settling on the ever-brilliant Piney Gir's
'Every Day's A Holiday', containing surely the finest Christmas riff since
Slade gave Crimbo a firm glam boot up the derriere way back when.
Speaking of glam, Art Brut's rakish
lynchpin Eddie Argos also makes an appearance on
Festivus, as part of the stomping Glam Chops,
whose mischievous offering conjures up images of a half-naked Santa dancing on
his Lapland HQ desk, clutching a bottle of Harvey's Bristol Cream and singing
raucously to The Sweet.
Jangling sleigh bells herald The Real
Tuesday Weld's languid, jazzy 'Song Of December',
while Hunks & Friends' 'The Magic Of
Christmas' opens with the immortal whispered lines:
"Daddy, what's this?"
"It's a Christmas song!"
"But it sounds just like every
other Christmas song…"
"That's the magic of
Christmas!"
The Christmas magic of this compilation, of
course, is that each song has very much its own character –and a most endearing
one at that. FESTIVUS is not only here to bring
back the lost art of the Christmas record, but also to take it to new levels of
artistic merit and listener enjoyment.
FESTIVUS has
been brought to you by Highline Records and
Father Christmas, because you've been very good this year.
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