For the past few years, as a holiday tradition, Sufjan has embarked on an extraordinary experiment to record an annual Christmas EP. He indulged in the project initially as an exercise to make himself “appreciate” Christmas more. It started in 2001, the year of Epiphanies, and continued onward (skipping only 2004), culminating into an odd and idiosyncratic catalog of music that has only existed in the Asthmatic Kitty archives (and on a number of file sharing sites). The recording process took place every December, for one week, usually at home, provoking collaborations with friends, roommates, and musical peers. Armed with a Reader’s Digest Christmas Songbook (and a mug of hot cider) Sufjan & friends concocted a musical fruit cake year after year, implementing every musical instrument they could find lying around the house: banjo, oboe, Casiotone, wood flute, a buzzy guitar, hand claps, sleigh bells, Hammond organ, and some tree tinsel. Did we mention sleigh bells?
words by:Asthmatic Kitty
Peace: Songs for Christmas, Vol. V (recorded June 2006)
1. Once in Royal David’s City
2. Get Behind Me, Santa! *
3. Jingle Bells
4. Christmas in July *
5. Lo! How A Rose E’er Blooming
6. Jupiter Winter *
7. Sister Winter *
8. O Come O Come Emmanuel
9. Star of Wonder *
10. Holy, Holy, Holy
11. The Winter Solstice *
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Infiniheart is Chad Vangaalen's first album."Maybe this is just an American's projection onto our northerly neighbors, but I imagine Chad VanGaalen knows the cold very intimately. He hails from Calgary, where he busked street corners and subways for years, gradually building up a large catalog of original songs. Using a variety of instruments and equipment-- some of which he's fashioned by hand-- the relentless DIY'er has recorded hundreds of his songs in a makeshift studio in his bedroom, where you can imagine him retreating from a frigid evening."
