Category: A Cappella

PEPPER PROUD - SNOW

8/29/2018

I must like this because I've downloaded it three times. But how much do I like it if I can't remember that I already downloaded it?

I love the acoustics--"Snow" was recorded live at The Muse Mansion in December 2017. I love her voice. I love her name--Pepper Proud. I love the arrangement on "Carol of the Bells". And the arrangement of "Frosty The Snowman" is certainly...different (oddly both Grunge and Ambient, actually). So why does it leave my mind as soon as the download finishes? Eh, questions for which we do not have the answers, I'm afraid.

Pepper Proud was born in West Virginia and moved to Seattle in 2007. So what you get is Americana Folk and Bluegrass with Seattle Indie influence and flair. And you might not get the full picture from this pair of Christmas tracks, so it's worth checking out Pepper's 2014 full-length "Water" which, as it happens, is a name-your-price download at Bandcamp, just as "Snow" is (hmm. Snow, Water....I'm sensing a pattern, here). Anyway, try it on for size. You might just like what you hear. I did. (Or at least I think I did. Wait, what were we talking about again?)

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MASKARADE - FROSTY THE SNOWMAN IS COMING TO TOWN

8/27/2018

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In this Christmas music biz, you gotta be prepared to dive down almost every rabbit hole because one thing will lead to another (not always, but often enough). Case in point: after posting Gang Clouds on Saturday, I just got an itch to click on "France" in the navigation to the right. Whereupon I was re-introduced to Maskarade, the French duo who delight in making fun little Mashups for the YouTube. We spotlighted two such holiday creations in 2016--one a sort of Folk Pop thing and the other a classic Doo Wop a capella. If you read what we wrote then, you'll note that they cite Frank Sinatra and Bob Marley as favorite artists and influences. Hmm. I wonder which one inspired this Mashup of "Frosty The Snowman" and "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town".

One thing we didn't do in our previous Maskarade write-up is identify the duo by their names, so let's take care of that right now. Maskarade is (are?) Yannh Yacine Gueddari (aka BG77) & Alain Kong aka (KongZylla). And while the guys are mostly just having fun, they recently won some kind of contest in France and they've been touring of late. And, while "Frosty The Snowman Is Coming To Town" might not be the best example, Maskarade have beautiful voices that blend well together. You don't have to take my word for it. Maskarade did a MashUp of "Hotline Bling" and "All of Me" and Drake's a fan (at least I think so; it was all in French, so who really knows).

Where their Christmas music is concerned, Maskarade's routine is to post a new number to YouTube just before the big day, making the free download available the following year. So, though I'm listing it as 2017, "Frosty" is technically from 2016. And you'll find it free to download via Soundcloud. "Holy Jingle" and "White Christmas" are also still available there.

Since they release their Christmas tracks to YouTube a year before the download gets dropped to Soundcloud, you might be asking what the guys did for 2017. Thank you for asking. Maskarade posted two short holiday videos last year, an a capella (and French) "Deck The Christmas Trees" and this sweet MashUp of "O Holy Night" and "O Christmas Tree". Y'all know how I love "O Holy Night" and Maskarade does not let me down.

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MASKARADE - OH! JINGLE & BONNE ANNEE GRAND-MERE

12/18/2016

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One stop, no fuss. Love the video, which dropped Christmas Eve a year ago, but the audio and free download wasn't posted until, like, May or something. So, while a lot of people have seen the video, very few have had the chance to grab the free download of "Oh! Jingle & Bonne Annee Grand-Mere" (also known as "The Holy Jingle") which is a folksy Indie MashUp of "Jingle Bells", "O Holy Night" and their French counterparts.

Maskarade are a French duo. They love Frank Sinatra, Bob Marley, and MashUps. They appear to enjoy the process of making their little Pop creations as much as anything. And you get a bit of the feeling of their creation enjoyment when you watch the videos. They also seem to be primarily YouTube artists at this point (worked for Beiber).

Did they do another Christmas song for 2016? Why, yes, thank you for asking. Also free to download via Soundcloud is "White Christmas" (yeah, you want this one, the least you can do is pay them a visit), which is pretty much straight a cappella doo wop (in the tried and true Ravens arrangement).

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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.

PEPPER PROUD - SNOW

MASKARADE - FROSTY THE SNOWMAN IS COMING TO TOWN

MASKARADE - OH! JINGLE & BONNE ANNEE GRAND-MERE

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