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It’s a Very Special Peacheater Indie Christmas playlist!

Gremlins know your new favorite band

I used to think I hated Christmas songs. I dreaded the moment when the manufactured atmosphere coming off the Wal-bucks speakers would all be playing songs from the same playlist of all that is snowy and ribbon-wrapped. But in my first December as an obsessed radio-streamer, I discovered many delightful Christmas songs I’d never heard before.

Now that ’tis the season once again I’m looking forward to it. I’ve come to realize that what I hated about Christmas music was the same thing I’ve come to hate about commercial radio: it’s all so overplayed. Based on the narrow selection of songs you hear every holiday, you’d think that a new Christmas song only comes along every other year. This is ridiculous, of course. There are thousands of bands making music every year and even if many don’t have the holiday spirit, still many others must still be tempted to hop on the Christmas-cash-cow band wagon. The oft-praised Sufjan Stevens has released his third Christmas album, for Santa’s sake! And you don’t hear a one of those on the radio. Even Cardiff’s hippest hipsters Los Campesinos! are getting in on the action with their Christmas album, A Los Campesinos! Christmas.

But just as Weird ole’ uncle Al likes to harp on about walking to school buck naked in forty miles of snow, I’ll take any opportunity to complain about the dismal state of radio. The moral to this story is that there are tons of great Christmas songs out there that, just like in every other season, aren’t getting any airplay. Here are a few of my favorite indie Christmas songs.

Pas/Cal – Little Red Radio

An indie rock song that’s as pure as A Christmas Story. Much like the kids of that old Christmas flick, the narrative of this song is all about that one coveted present. And like the young characters in A Christmas Story the crooners’ want is just sweet and naive enough to make the consumerism palatable. “Little Red Radio” is probably the most spirited use of an organ ever used in a Christmas song.

Of Montreal – Christmas Isn’t Safe For Animals

If you like your music weird and if you prefer Buy Nothing Day to Black Tuesday, this is the song for you. Barely a Christmas song and more of an anti-consumer artistic statement. (I wish more of Of Montreal’s music leaned more towards social criticism and less towards whimsical fantasy.) It’s quirks like this that make me love Of Montreal all the more; either you’ll love this or hate it.

The Hives & Cyndi Lauper – A Christmas Duel

Currently this is my favorite Christmas song. Many have voted Fairytale of New York as the best Christmas song of all time, and if you’re in that crowd, you’ll love this track too. Like the couple trapped in the drunk tank on Christmas, this song highlights how Christmas brings together people who aren’t always happy to be in the same room together. Hilarity ensues. It would be a great song if it weren’t the Hives with Cyndi Lauper, but seeing as how it is, double the greatness.

Fallout Boy – What’s This

A punk cover of one of the best songs from The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. Does singing from the point of view of the Grinch count as punk rebellion?

Sally Shapiro – Anorak Christmas (Anoraak’s Christmas Remix)

For the electro lovers, here’s your sythtastic Christmas song.

Fan Mail for Evan Peterson: Dark Songs With Pretty Words

Evan J PetersenThis is my friend Evan Peterson. Isn’t he handsome? He runs this nifty press in Seattle, and he writes zombie poetry and other things horrific, queer and clever. He has a timid greyhound rescue dog named after a character in an Oscar Wilde story.

This is a mix tape for Evan. So the songs are a little dark or a little queer, or well-stated, just like Evan and the stuff he writes. I’ve also focused on songs that are new wave, electro, or dark wave as I know those are genres Mr. Petersen and I both favor. In honing the list, I’ve favored songs that embrace big topics like God while fearlessly examining our shadow selves, because I know Evan Petersen thinks about the heavy shit.

And this is the part where I explain the choices. Because what fun is a mix if you don’t overthink it? Continue reading Fan Mail for Evan Peterson: Dark Songs With Pretty Words

A Closer Look At: Of Montreal — the Sunlandic Twins

Unlike your average one-download wonders, Sunlandic Twins is a well-produced album with nifty tie-ins that shift the album smoothly from one track to the next. This is an album to listen to from beginning to end, preferably in the space right before dreams start. While some of the songs feel like transition pieces to the better numbers, most of them have an interesting progression and climax. Their sweet sounding harmonious voices are just harsh enough to be rock n’ roll when necessary. Sunlandic Twins is heavy on light keyboards, giving the work that happy sound reminiscent of the best the eighties had to offer.

The album kicks off with “Requiem for OMM2,” which sounds like a leftover from the British Invasion. “I Was A Landscape In Your Dream” is what a brain massage might feel like while “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games” is bouncy and bass-y. “Forecast Fascist Future” continues the fantasy with a well-constructed song that is somewhere between Dr. Seuss and Sci-Fi. The lyrics to this track are telling of the band’s narrative style:

The language of the frost lobs dead balloons over ruins today/
In view of wan wordless crowds that chase waifs to spires with fiery plumes./

There’s enough poetry hear to keep the listening interesting beyond the first two or three rotations.

The real gems on the Sunlandic Twins are “So Begins Our Alabee, ” and “The Party’s Crashing Us.” The latter is one for singing and dancing. If these indie-rockers had a club anthem, this would be it. A double-clap beat gives way to an electronic swell. It also features some of the most memorable lyrics I’ve heard in a long time:

Oh well, we made love/ like a pair of black wizards/
you freed me from the past/ you fucked the suburbs out of me./

“So Begins Our Alabee,” has a heavier sound. Like most of the tracks, the bass guitar and keyboard drives the song. This track is so furiously good that hearing it makes my heart beat a little faster.

Give this album a listen. Though the lyrics are at times inexplicable, the riffs are not. I could use your help interpreting their mad genius.