Ryan’s Music Picks 🎄 20 December 2016

There are 3 or 4 different kinds of Christmas songs, really. There are songs about Santa coming to town, songs about how it’s cold and romance is in the air, songs about the fact that it is winter, and songs about baby Jesus being born. I tend to gravitate to types 3 and 4, but I’m an equal-opportunity Christmas music listener. I have written extensively about Christmas music because I love it so. I especially love “new” Christmas music, meaning either redone classics in an interesting style, or new songs that evoke the season just right enough for them to earn there way into my personal Christmas music canon.

Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings – It’s a Holiday Soul Party (Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify)Sharon Jones just died about a month ago, but she has long been an ambassador of soul, bringing the classic sound to the modern era. She left us with this album of toe-tapping Christmas tunes that’s a nice mix of funked-up classics and inspired originals.

David Bazan – Dark Sacred Night (Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify)In a bygone era, David Bazan as Pedro the Lion recorded yearly Christmas singles on 7″ records. His relationship with Jesus has become a bit more complicated since then, but he still celebrates Jesus’ birth on this new album. Some of the songs from those old singles have been rerecorded, along with some new covers of classic holiday tunes (and a cover of Low’s Christmas song Long Way Around the Sea) and an original. Bazan reworks some of the classics too, adding his own modern and inspired verses in. All around, it’s a pretty dark Christmas record, not exactly the cheery sort, but the kind that we really need this holiday season.

Josh Garrels – The Light Came Down (Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify)What we have here is a dreamy album of lush, dark holiday tunes, a good mix of originals, classics, and hymns. This is one of a couple of albums this time around that is particularly Jesus-focused, but this one in particular acts less as the antithesis of Bazan’s album as much as it is kind of the other side of the same coin. They are, in a sense, companions, illustrating the doubt and hope that comingle in the Holiday season and the Winter Solstice. The production on this album is particularly gorgeous, and I have found myself craving this album more than most other seasonal albums this year.

Various Artists – Over the Hills and Everywhere (Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify)If you prefer your Christmas music to be a bit more overt about the whole Jesus thing, this is the one for you. Gospel Song Union is a record label that focuses on particularly modern Christian worship music, and these tracks are really quite good and they’re definitely not ashamed of the Gospel. I’m a fan of the Kings Kaleidoscope track that takes the tune of Auld Lang Syne and adds some very hymn-like lyrics. The Modern Post track features lead singer Dustin Kensrue who also happens to sing in Thrice, so that’s a good one too.

Tartelet Records – North Pole Boogie Vol. 16 (Bandcamp only)Sometimes for Christmas you just want jazzy house music. This is a pay what you want/free collection of slightly off-kilter electronic music that’s much better than any Jingle Bells remix could possibly be.