Peace! Songs For Christmas, Vol. V

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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The album that takes me back to Saginaw

Summer last year i moved to Saginaw, Michigan with my cousin Hector. After lots of bonfires with friends, fishing trips, cottage houses by the lake and seeing snow for the first time i came back to my hometown in San Juan, Puerto Rico late August this year and now i cant seem to get enough of this album by Sufjan Stevens, himself a Michigander. This album a tribute to Michigan, takes you through isolated rural country sides with frozen river banks and snow covered parks with it's slow minimalist sound from instruments like: banjo, acoustic guitar, piano, xylophones, vibraphones, glockenspiels, wood floutes, sleigh bells, tambourines accompanied by Stevens fragile voice.

1. "Flint (For the Unemployed and Underpaid)" – 3:44
2. "All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace!" – 4:33
3. "For the Widows in Paradise, For the Fatherless in Ypsilanti" – 3:57
4. "Say Yes! to M!ch!gan!" – 2:46
   • (The track title refers to a Michigan tourism slogan from the 1980s)
5. "The Upper Peninsula" – 3:23
6. "Tahquamenon Falls" – 2:18
7. "Holland" – 3:26
8. "Detroit, Lift Up Your Weary Head! (Rebuild! Restore! Reconsider!)" – 8:20
9. "Romulus" – 4:41
10. "Alanson, Crooked River" – 1:18
11. "Sleeping Bear, Sault Saint Marie" – 2:52
12. "They Also Mourn Who Do Not Wear Black (For the Homeless in Muskegon)" – 6:21
13. "Oh God, Where Are You Now? (In Pickerel Lake? Pigeon? Marquette? Mackinaw?)" – 9:23
14. "Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)" – 2:02
15. "Vito's Ordination Song" – 7:07

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