Features Tracks: The Christmas Edition

Ah, tis the season of goodwill! The family are all descending to gather round the tree, and won’t it be swell? It will, that is, until your Nan drinks all the sherry and tries to perform an acapella version of ‘Santa Baby’, or children start screaming for One Direction’s Christmas single to be put on a repeat. Once your uncle takes over the stereo and slurs along to ‘Fairy Tale Of New York’ for 7 hours without respite, you’re going to need some decent music to listen to.

Luckily we have the perfect gift for you. There was a bit of squabbling when the DIY writers got together in novelty jumpers and devised our comprehensive list of Christmas tracks, but the results are more satisfying than a well-made eggnog. Enjoy, and a very Happy Christmas.

The Knife- Christmas Reindeer

Scandinavia and Christmas go together as well as pigs and blankets anyway – but normally people visit Sweden during Yuletide for things like snow, glögg, quaint Christmas markets, and giant goats built out of straw. Here’s another reason Sweden basically owns Christmas – The Knife’s ‘Christmas Reindeer’. It manages to sound incredibly creepy and hypnotizing at the same time, like aimlessly drifting blizzard snow being yanked into an orbiting wind pocket. The Knife’s reindeer are tired servants to mister Santa, wearily dragging presents “like shadows in the dark.” This is the typical Christmas song, but flying along upside down before doing a 720 flip in Santa’s Sleigh. (El Hunt)

Summer Camp - Christmas Wrapping

With Summer Camp being big fans of the 80s and the pop culture that surrounded it, it comes as no surprise that they covered The Waitresses’ Christmas classic ‘Christmas Wrapping’. A band known for talking about the unabashed joy of being in love but also the darker side of it in their music, this song perfectly encapsulates those feelings in relation to Christmas. An ode to Christmas and lost romance turning into new romance, it’s almost as if Summer Camp could have written this themselves. They stay true to the original but manage to make it their own – the faint sound of Christmas bells jingling and twinkling keys perfectly paired with gravelly guitar riffs and low-end synths accompanying Sankey and Warmsley’s vocals. As Christmas draws ever closer, deck those halls, trim those trees, raise up cups of Christmas cheer. (Aurora Mitchell)

Peace - Last Christmas

This is painful to write. Not because I’m suffering from cracker-induced repetitive stress injury, or mulled wine generated migraines. Instead, it’s because Peace didn’t play their ‘Last Christmas’ cover last Saturday at Shepherds Bush. I felt a kind of festive sadness that one often sees in the eyes of those at Toby Carvery Xmas work-dos; host organisms for their deflated cracker-hats, and getting inflated with sage stuffing and Yorkshire Puds. Quips aside, it’s a banger of a cover; wrapped up in a piggy blanket of glossy guitars and harmonies tighter than the fists of two in-laws playing Charades. Unlike the original, it hasn’t got a wallowing, let’s-look-thoughtful-in-dead-meerkat-coats feel to it; but – rather brilliantly - it’s still cheesier than Dale Winton’s cauliflower bake. Whack this one on after the port and thin mints, and watch gleefully as a full-on family debate on the year of B-Town unfolds. Or maybe your Mum will just bang on about much she fancied George Michael. (Kyle MacNeill)

Run The Jewels - A Christmas Fucking Miracle

It’s a little bit of a stretch to call this a ‘Christmas song’, but it’s got festive jingles in the beat and straight up bangs so who really cares. El-P and Killer Mike have had an absolutely fantastic year, what with ‘Run the Jewels’ standing up against giants such as ‘Yeezus’. So what better way to celebrate Christmas by honouring the year’s greatest rap duo? As one of the more personal songs from both artists, it’s not exactly a cheery Christmas treat, but it remains as delightful as a bellyful of mulled wine (not the cheap stuff either). The real present here is El-P and Killer Mike’s chemistry, which shines as bright as any overpowered tacky Christmas decoration, just with a little more finese. To top it all off, the prospect of further Run the Jewels material is what makes the new year so goddamn exciting. (Joe Price)

The Flaming Lips - Christmas At The Zoo

With most Christmas songs, you can start up a little game of cliché bingo. Santa? Check. Winter? You bet. Zoo Animals? Oh yeah…hey, wait a second. The Flaming Lips aren’t exactly one to stick to their tradition, and ‘Christmas At The Zoo’ is an ode to charitable acts of animal liberation gone wrong. “Thanks but no thanks man,” say the Kangaroos, who apparently prefer the idea of spending Christmas Day in the zoo rather than hopping across State Park or going back to Australia for a festive Beach BBQ. There’s a whistled solo and a touch of Christmas cheer there in the jingling bells, but this is a batshit crazy Christmas song you can play all year round. Extra points for a video that might make you think somebody sprinkled something a bit extra into the Christmas Pud. (El Hunt)

Allo Darlin’ - Only Dust Behind

For every instance of Noddy Holder et al going utterly bananas, there’s also the school of Christmas songwriting that knocks it back and peg or two - like The Pretenders’ ‘2000 Miles’ - where an element of wistfulness is the order of the day. This is where Allo Darlin’s Elizabeth Morris, as someone with an indisputable way with words and the ability to transport you somewhere else - shines. Here we’re in a place, beautifully depicted, where there are ‘streets filled with rain, reflecting the Christmas lights’ ‘a man with a santa hat on sings all of the Pogues songs he knows’, and where ‘last night, we were shooting stars, leaving only dust behind’. It may almost be the norm these days to describe her songs as being laced with the sort of lyrical details deployed by fellow Brisbanite and former member The Go-Betweens so beloved by Morris, but right here it’s bang on. The fact it was one of the quickest editions of the singles club it was originally released as part of to sell out speaks for itself. (Gareth Ware)

7777777 by Allo Darlin’

Galaxie 500 - Listen, The Snow Is Falling

While there is absolutely nothing wrong with Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ (ignoring me doing severe injustice to the high notes) she’s not responsible for the only blinding Christmas song of the 90s. Once the family have started hysterically screaming at extremely weak cracker jokes and throwing the praline shells at the cat, take five minutes out with this beauty while the Queen is yabbering on about ‘my husband and I’. Naomi Yang’s vocals make me teary every single time, and don’t even get me started on that incredible drawn out guitar solo that slow-roasts like a glazed turkey. (El Hunt)

Cocteau Twins - Winter Wonderland

There’s something quietly magical and spectral about a still, crisp frost tinged Christmas morning. Whether we get that or not this year remains to be seen but this gracefully wintry waltz by Cocteau Twins beautifully evokes those feelings. Elizabeth Fraser’s rendition of ‘Winter Wonderland’ is perfectly poised, that instantly recognisable inimitable voice is a ghostly lilting presence that perfectly chimes with the magic of Christmas. (Martyn Young)

The Magnetic Fields - Mr. Mistletoe

If ever there was a list go-to guys for a down-at-heel, hands-in-pockets, eyes-to-the-ground wander type of festive offering, Stephin Merritt would be high on the list (he maintains it’s inherently funny and sad ‘only if you ignore the preposterous central conceit of singing to the mistletoe.’ We think he’s telling fibs. Though, credit where it’s due, it’s a great answer). The song finds our narrator, emotionally wounded, taking his frustration out on the plant so beloved by office workers trying to make a love nest next to Xerox machine. Cue lines such as ‘Oh Mr Mistletoe, go find your tree/didn’t you know there’s no Christmas for me?’ and melded to chiming pianos and acres of fuzz (owing to the sonic theme of parent record, ‘Distortion’). Perhaps, in the bitterness stakes, the only true rival to the seasonal favourite beloved of misguided retail playlist compilers - ABBA’s ‘Happy New Year’. (Gareth Ware)

Bruce Springsteen - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Christmas often brings out something of the child in all of us and that is certainly apparent in the boyish enthusiasm that Bruce Springsteen brings to that hardy ol’ Christmas perennial ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’. The Boss has a ball on this 1975 live recording as he and the E Street band play up to the songs theme as he warns Clarence Clemons to be good if he wants to get himself a new saxophone before the whole thing collapses into joyous, infections glee as the big man hams it up with some hearty ho ho’s. Oh, also that sax break was made to be played by Clarence Clemons. A joyous romp to gladden the heart of the darkest Scrooge. (Martyn Young)

Poema - The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire)

Roasting chestnuts on an open fire might be a rapidly withering tradition in a world crammed with digital distractions, but the seasonal sentiment lives on through lavish re-imaginations of the track that popularised the notion. Female singer-songwriter duo Poema place a characteristically bluesy spin on the wholesome Christmas classic that emanates a deeply radiant sense of winter warmth, with the two sisters’ cherubic harmonies blending together in a blissfully glorious unison. Coupled with the decision to leave in cozy quirks like the audible background hum of the amplifer and the slicked scraping of reverberating guitar strings, these girls have struck up a breezy cover that’s quintessential listening for those lounging snugly within their humble homesteads this holiday season. (Joshua Pauley)

Layers - It Feels Like Christmas (Now)

Birmingham’s favourite prog-metal-pop-rock wizards have re-released their smash hit Christmas single from last year. Well, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. It hops, skips and jumps between tongue in cheek Christmas-isms and complex riffin’, all the while bringing the festive cheer by the sleigh-load. All in all ‘It Feels Like Christmas (Now)’ is heavier than Santa’s sack.(Jack Parker)

Advances In Mathematics - Sad Xmas Present

For all the inherent boisterousness of the festive period, there’s a lot to be said for having a quiet bit of reflection too. So whether you’re after a soundtrack to your Partridge-esque Christmas day walk, simple post-lunch blissout while all your relatives snooze, or even to avoid a full-on meltdown during the end of Toy Story 3, this should be your go-to. Originally released as a very limited physical release dressed up as an actual present, its dreamy, beautiful tones (think Mogwai-lite) ebb and flow to produce a calming tonic that most people probably need at least once during the day… (Gareth Ware)

Sad Xmas Present EP by Advances In Mathematics