“Erasure are releasing a Christmas album in November! It’s called–oh, fuck. You’re Muslim.”
That is exactly how I introduced the new Erasure album to my Muslim friend, who told me he loves Christmas music.
Erasure are releasing their first-ever full-length Christmas album on 11 November, and it consists of both classic Christmas songs and original material. This is perfect. I love Christmas albums that combine classics with original works.
The first single off the album, according to the Erasure Information Service, is a rendition of Gaudete, a Latin Christmas carol believed to have been composed some time during the sixteenth century, but which probably existed as a hymn in the late Medieval period. It sounds deliciously haunting, right? It is a bold idea for a single, too.
Veteran folk band Steeleye Span have already released a stunningly beautiful version of this old carol, and quite frankly I believe it belongs in everyone’s Christmas playlist.
Isn’t it hauntingly gorgeous? I hope Erasure improve upon it. With Vince’s slick, synthesised production and Andy’s peregrine-like vocals, I doubt they will fail to please. Vince and Andy have a strangely, chillingly cool understanding of pop music which I adore.
I know it is barely the beginning of Autumn, but I love the Autumn and Winter seasons. Fleeces, pumpkins, trees decorated in candy and glass baubles, and new tunes to listen to. So this new album by Erasure is absolutely perfect.
Anybody who knows me knows that I am a big, fat Christmas whore. Not because I like to celebrate the advent of Christ’s coming to earth–neither I nor my family are religious–but because of the music, cooking, decorating, and, perhaps most of all, the seasonal postmarks, which are still honoured by pagans everywhere as “yule”, or the “wheel” of the year. Recognizing the seasonal cycle was important for pre-industrial peoples, who used them to determine when to sow, when to harvest, when to ration, etc. Winter solstice, co-opted by Christians, marks the dark night of the year–the beginning of the return of light. At this, the shortest day of the year, there is a unique tension between a supreme darkness and a creeping luminescence. I still like to recognize the cycles created by these forces, since they keep me grounded in nature.
Because of all of this suspense, Christmas is an exciting time of the year. Perhaps the funnest part of the Christmas season (which begins with Advent–itself beginning four Sundays before Christmas–and ends with Twelfth Night, in January) is the music. I don’t mean Mariah Carey’s latest Christmas album–I mean the golden age of popular Christmas music, which extends roughly from 1940 to 1971, and includes every genre from jazz to pop to motown. For some reason, the Christmas music recorded during this period has a melodic, magical warmth that is almost haunting. It is filled with chimes, bells, soft drums, gingerly-strummed guitars, and rich, resonant solos backed by sweet, Disney-esque choirs. None of it is ever over-wrought.
It also brings back memories (and I am not nostalgic). The selections in the following list of Christmas tunes (which range from ca. 1942 to 1971) were all recorded before I was born, but they were recorded largely, although not exclusively, by my grandmother on a cassette tape in 1979 (the year after I was born) as a Christmas present, and I have attempted for the past two Christmases to collect the very same tracks from the Internet in digital audio format. Serendipitously, I have found not only the majority of these Christmas relics, but also a smattering of other magical-sounding mid-century tracks which should warm the heart as well as any hot toddy.
brandon arkell 