Category: Shoegaze

VARIOUS - THE BFW CHRISTMAS ALBUM 2014

12/15/2014

BFW WEBSITE
DOWNLOAD AT BANDCAMP

1. Eko_Fisk - Solstice II
2. Kevin Lyons - Between the Woods and the Frozen Lake
3. Daniel Prendiville - Drop A Dress Size For Christmas
4. Stephen Briggs - Time to reflect
5. David Gerard - Approaching Solstice
6. Sound Awakener - Reunion
7. Cousin Silas - One Bright Evening
8. mutanT.R.I. - Underivation
9. William Ash - Noël Wells Comes Home for Christmas
10. Paul Mimlitsch & Roger Sundstrom - Red Bell BC
11. Cousin Silas - Bah Humbug!
12. Stefan Blixt - Flames of Winter
13. The Owl Effect - Redemtion
14. Amygdala - Travelling with the Comet
15. Bing Satellites - Day Of The Really Long Dogs
16. Tim Kays - Moonlight on Christmas Snow (for Lori Shaffer DeGroff)
17. Elypixa - Elytriste
18. Scott Lawlor - Apertio aurium

Another of our annual winter visitors, the BFW label has issued their 2014 Christmas album. BFW specializes in Ambient, so you know what you're getting here, mostly. The album opens and closes with terrific and very beautiful pieces that represent two of my highlights, "Solstice II" by Eko_Fisk and Steve Lawlor's "Apertio Aurium". Tim Kays' "Moonlight On Christmas Snow" is quite moving (though it does run over 10 minutes). If you're looking for a bit more energy, Cousin Silas delights us with a mild Ska beat on "Bah Humbug!". And Stefan Blixt offers up "Flames Of Winter" Shoegaze. As always, "The BFW Christmas Album" is free to download, either through the BFW site or via Bandcamp. You'll find all their previous Christmas sets still available free as well.

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VARIOUS - A POLAROID FOR CHRISTMAS (2014)

12/14/2014

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01) Flying Vaginas - Santa Bring Me A Dinosaur
02) Baseball Gregg - Rebel Without A Claus
03) Burnt Palms - You
04) New Adventures In Lo-Fi - Temptation
05) Slow Shot - Shining All Night
06) The Mumble Jackson - Darling
07) Barbados - The Fall
08) Machweo - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town
09) Setti - Crauti
10) Skelets On Me - Love
11) Le Man Avec Les Lunettes - I'll Be Home for Christmas
12) Neverending Mojitos - Cooking Up Something Good
13) Osc2x - Dreaming Of A Wild Christmas
14) Winter Dies In June - Winter Dies In June
15) Neverwhere - Christmas Eve Lonesome Bitterness Blues

One of my favorite presents every Christmas is the one with a big musical bow on it from the Italian blog Polaroid. Every year, their humble blog host invites bands to submit a song for the holiday season. It could be a Christmas or seasonal song or just a song to keep you company while you trim the tree. It's always a glistening, sparkling collection of Indie Pop and Rock, most of which you won't find anywhere else.

Every year, at least a few of these songs will captivate me and become among my favorites for the year. For me, this year's highlights are mostly on the back half. Though not properly a Christmas song, I loved Skelets On Me's cover of John Lennon's "Love". Le Man Avec Les Lunettes sound almost Lennon like on "I'll Be Home For Christmas". Machweo's spacey Ambient Psych "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" (which is actually "Let It Snow") is plenty amazing and entrancing (listen to it while staring at the cover art for full effect). And the two numbers closing the set, "Winter Dies In June" and "Christmas Eve Lonesome Bitterness Blues" are my favorites of all (if not the cheeriest). Head to the Polaroid web site for the full download. Poke around a bit and find the earlier volumes, which (if nothing's changed since last year) should all still be available.

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LESS WESTERN - HOLOGRAPHIC HOLIDAY

11/29/2014

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1. In Reverse
2. Nocturnal
3. Holographic Holiday
4. Hallway Drone
5. Winter Strain

DOWNLOAD VIA BANDCAMP

By their own admission, North Carolina's Less Western were just experimenting, messing around and making up songs about Christmas and staying up too late. Whatever their intentions, the result is a lovely set of lo-fi psychedelic shoe-gaze and dream pop which the band dropped Thanksgiving day.

"Holographic Holiday" features 5 tracks, though the first, "In Reverse", is just a 30 second intro to set the proper mood as you phase into their alternate dimension. The "star" piece is likely to be the title track, "Holographic Holiday". Me, personally, I'm partial to "Nocturnal". And there's something very cool about "Winter Strain". Get the whole set from Bandcamp and pick your own favorite.

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The FREE List

Here we hope to direct you to some of the Christmas music on the web that can be yours absolutely free. We will not direct you to mp3 or sharity sites, here, but only to artist sites, label sites, and other authorized and unquestionably legal locations.

VARIOUS - THE BFW CHRISTMAS ALBUM 2014

VARIOUS - A POLAROID FOR CHRISTMAS (2014)

LESS WESTERN - HOLOGRAPHIC HOLIDAY

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