| featuring
artists from the indie label fortuna pop!, this is not your average christmas
offering, even if it does suffer from the perennial seasonal problem of being
higher in novelty value than in quality. some tracks don't even seem to be about
christmas at all; those that do range from mogul's sardonic reworking of (lonely)
this christmas to the naïve acoustica of the wimp's boxing day via the wasted
thrash electro of the loves' come-down hymn, cold turkey. but the best has to
be homescience's jangly (drive a...) snowplough through your heart - surely a
song to melt the hardest scrooge.
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| it's
the c86/indie remedy for the nausea-inducing niceness of last christmas (heard
last christmas, this christmas and every christmas to come until santa impregnates
the christmas fairy and elves reveal details of boxing day sex 'n' coke orgies
at the north pole) and wonderful christmastime. fortuna pop! knows that the true
spirit of christmas is a snowball with a baileys chaser and the sound of christmas
is dad retching on christmas evening as gran indulges in sprout-induced windiness
in front of the tv. the star attraction of this compilation is the loves' claustrophobic
version of cold turkey, whose cotton wool production and throbbing bass is just
perfect for a tale of comedown. this is the track you'll return to again and again.
little donkey is bearsuit pissing in the crib by bolting on various instruments
and treated voices to a skeleton of recorders. slight but fun. discordia's boxing
day blues is anything but, a slice of electronic philadelphia soul that raises
the spirits. mark 700 uses loops and samples, with a fat lady singing 'silent
night'; one for the down side of christmas when goodwill to all men is in short
supply. to show seasonal willing, tender trap add bells to the end of a bouncy
frankincense and myrrh, with its lovely melody and hint of 'wonderwall' in the
chorus. by contrast, homescience pile on the sleighbells and snow references in
a wombles meeting the beach boys moment on (drive a...) snowplough through your
heart. it's the one song here to catch that traditional christmas song spirit.
at a fiver, it's a third of the price of some crappy now christmas compilation
and will still be playable a week after chrimbo and, for the loves alone, it's
an essential purchase. now, be off and wrap those slippers. |