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- Pattern Is Movement, not quite kings of the publicity shot.
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- Slaraffenland, kings of the publicity shot.
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- Couldn’t find a pic of Shannon Fields alone, so … Stars Like Fleas, everyone!
I meant to drape this little bit of tinsel a long time ago, but I’m space-y as Kevin this time of year and vulnerable to long bouts of eating, drinking and overall indulging. For instance, last night Penny and I indulged in a metric ton of taco chips and watched movies. Normally I’d stop eating at some point but HEY, IT’S THE HOLIDAYS.
Hometapes know, perhaps more than anyone, that Christmas only comes but once a year, and must be celebrated to the utmost. Hence the creation of the Eight Days Of Hometapes series, eight Christmas/holiday tunes by eight artists, released over the course of — you didn’t forget! — eight days.
The artists are as follows: Slaraffenland, Shannon Fields, Pattern Is Movement, Brad Laner, The Carribean and … and (littering and) … and … I GUESS WE’LL JUST FIND OUT IN THE COMING DAYS, NO?
Slaraffenland, as I suspected from the beginning, have delivered my favorite interpretation (UPDATE: I actually love-love Shannon Fields’ entry too so, you know, not so fast) so far with an acoustic slam of “Little Drummer Boy.” But just mentioning the acoustic geetar and moving on would be, well, stupid; there are also xylophone tippy-taps, piano tics, S-land’s patented chanting and nearly patented trumpets.
Then you have Shannon Fields (of Stars Like Fleas, a crazy-ass jug-band, if the jugs were filled with devil-ether and melted US Maple bars) and her kaleidoscopic, misanthropic take on “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” an echo-, synth- and found-sound-soaked sleighride through Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, if the lead character were a lonely, tiny Casio wandering through a desert of paper-mache vultures and ended up in a recording studio with some drunk people. Lead-on sentence HO!!!
I was eager to hear what Pattern Is Movement would do with “Oh Holy Night,” such a gem in Sufjan Stevens‘ and so many others’ hands. They have not disappointed me. Somewhere between a melodica and an accordion reside PIM, their voices resounding in the deep like a ghost choir slowly sinking down to hell. WHAT IN GOD’S NAME AM I TALKING ABOUT (sorry guys)?
Point is, it’s a nice track. I’m sure Brad Laner’s is too but I don’t have any more time for this post (so LISTEN, ok?). Here are the first four entries in list form, in case, you know, you didn’t catch the OBVIOUS LINKS above:
Slaraffenland — “Little Drummer Boy”
