THE MIND DE-CODER CHRISTMAS SPECIAL 2015

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MIND DE-CODER CHRISTMAS SHOW 2015

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. A bit like mind De-Coder.

                                                                           Norman Vincent Peale (-ish)

BUTCHER CLAWS     SILENT NIGHT I CAN’T GO ON

I thought I’d introduce the show with some hauntological goings on to reinforce the idea given to us by the Ghost of Christmas Past that Christmas was always better in the old days.

Butcher Claws is one of many pseudonyms created by James Kirby for his album THE V/VM CHRISTMAS PUDDING, released in 2000, in which he digitally mutilates crap Christmas records by the likes of Russ Abbott and Shakin’ Stevens and recycles them into something even more cruel and unusual than they were first time round. The album doesn’t make for an easy listen so while this track is playing like a ghostly gramophone record winding down in a haunted end-of-pier ballroom, I layer it with a number of festive samples and this…

THE WALL FAMILY     ANGELS FROM THE REALMS OF GLORY

The Museum of London were recently very excited to have discovered what are probably the oldest recordings of a family Christmas having a good old sing-song around the old Joanna, made by the Wall family some 115 years ago. The Wall family lived in New Southgate and recorded popular carols and hymns of the time onto wax cylinders which were made using a phonograph machine between 1902 and 1917. Cromwell Wall, who made the recordings, wheeled the phonograph along the streets in his children's pram in order to record the sound of Old Southgate Church bells pealing out New Year which is exactly the sort of thing I’d have done too. Angels From The Realms Of Glory was recorded on the 25th December by the whole family making it the most hauntological-est recording ever.

LILY’S     GOOD KING WENCELAS

Is this the same Lily’s that had a minor hit back in the 90’s with that song Nanny In Manhatten? You know the one, it accompanied that Levi’s commercial and sounded like a cross between the theme tune to Friends and The Banana Splits. No? Oh well, I don’t know either – if it is them they seem to have lost their definitive article along the way. Anyway, this track, a giddy rush of warped guitars, can be found on the compilation FESTIVUS 2, released by Highline Records in 2013 and finally gets the show going.

THE SMOKING TREES     THE PSYCHEDELIC LIGHTS OF CHRISTMAS

Yuletide bliss from The Smoking Trees and the b-side to their 2014 release Round Christmas Time.

MATRICARIANS     CHRISTMAS HUNTING SONG

The Matricarians are an experimental psychedelic folk band from Scotland (I think) who  create improvised musical pieces to which they later add traditional lyrics culled from the folksongs of North East Scotland – in other words, they’re exactly the sort of act who are going to make it onto any Christmas album released by the very fine Active Listener blogsite.

THE ROLLING STONES     COSMIC CHRISTMAS

Turns out the Rolling Stones toyed with the idea of calling THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES REQUEST Cosmic Christmas. Mind you, in those days they were toying with a lot of things. Cosmic Christmas, all 40 seconds of it, can be found on the run-out of Side One of the album, an album I still find rather joyless despite the amount of drugs that must have gone into its creation.  Think I end up playing it twice to give Terrence McKenna something to talk over as he discusses the psychedelic origins of Christmas in that slightly irritating way he has.

JIMI HENDRIX     LITTLE DRUMMER BOY/SILENT NIGHT/AULD LANG SYNE

This little gem was recorded by Hendrix and the Band of Gypsys in late 1969 during some downtime while rehearsing for their highly anticipated appearances at the Fillmore East in New York. It’s by no means a polished studio recording but provides a glimpse of Hendrix simply having fun in the company of close friends.  It’s not dissimilar to his legendary take on The Star Spangled Banner, and it’s fair to say the kids aren’t enamoured with it (by kids I mean my kids, not the kids in general) but this is a proper slice of festive psychedelia and should not be overlooked – it was released on 10” vinyl in 1999 as MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR.

SONS OF HIPPIES     TIME OF THE SEASON

A cover of The Zombies’ classic Time Of The Season isn’t, perhaps, the first track that springs to mind when creating a Christmas playlist, but what could be more perfect? This cracking version by Sons Of Hippies can be found on the neo-psych compilation release PSYCH-OUT CHRISTMAS, released 2013, a wigged-out stocking filler that even includes Iggy Pop singing a suitably menacing version of White Christmas – not included in this show, sadly – you’ll have to source it yourselves.

TREES IN THE LAKE     SILENT NIGHT

This rather lovely version of Silent Night was released as a single from the Exmouth based Trees In The Lake in 2012, a band that sounds like a romantic kitchen sink drama played out on acoustic instruments.

SPROATLY SMITH     THE LEAVES OF LIFE

According to Percy Dearner, author of that trusty tome The Oxford Book of Carols (Oxford University press, 1928) we’ve come to see carols as celebratory hymns of a Christmas nature when, in fact, they’re actually songs with a religious impulse that are simple, hilarious, popular, and modern. They are generally spontaneous and direct in expression, rich in true folk-poetry, and their simplicity of form causes them sometimes to ramble on like a ballad so, as you can imagine, once Sproatly Smith put their own psychedelically bucolic twist on them you’re going to have an album you can play all year round. The Leaves Of Life is taken from their fairly wonderful 2012 release, CAROLS FROM HEREFORDSHIRE, a collection of folk tunes collected by Ella Mary Leather, an early folklorist and musicologist in the manner of John Lomax. In the early 20th century she was one of the first people to record these songs, passed down through generation of singers and sung by itinerant farm workers from around Weobley and the local workhouse. All of which is to say, the album has rustic authenticity to it that is truly enhanced by the band’s tripped-out acid-psych sensibility. One of my favourite Christmas albums.

IMAGENE PEISE     DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR

Imagene Peise, of course (he writes authoritatively), are The Flaming Lips, and ATLAS EETS CHRISTMAS, released in 2014, is their psych-jazz piano album that originally appeared in a very limited run under the pseudonym Imagene Peise during the 2007 holiday season. Billed as a lost album by a mysterious young Iraqi piano prodigy named Peise, who committed suicide in 1978, the album plays like the soundtrack to some sort of unearthed educational filmstrip where science meets Santa. The album is almost entirely instrumental and plays around with lovely piano arrangements of such classics as Winter Wonderland, White Christmas and this particularly splendid version of Do You Hear What I Hear?, complete with buzzing sitars, spacy electronic noises, distant synths, the band's hallmark Mellotron drones  and a fabricated faux-vinyl crackle. It sounds very fine indeed on a Christmas morning when you’ve enjoyed a couple of Irish coffees and you’re just readying yourself to get started on prepping Christmas dinner.

GALAXIE 500     LISTEN, THE SNOW IS FALLING

Galaxie 500 always did a very fine line in cover versions – Jonathon Richman’s Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste from 1988’s TODAY and New Order’s Ceremony from the BLUE THUNDER EP in 1990 spring to mind, not to mention George Harrison’s Isn’t It A Pity from 1989’s ON FIRE, and this marvellous rendition of Yoko Ono’s Listen, The Snow Is Falling from their third and final album proper, 1990’s THIS IS OUR MUSIC. Actually I was torn between playing this version and Ono’s original, which appears on the B-Side to Happy Xmas and is really quite lovely in its own right. Perhaps I’ll put that version on the show’s Facebook page. But this version, with bassist Naomi Yang on vocals, is an argument for her ought to having been allowed behind the microphone more often, because this is gorgeous.

ELEPHANT STONE     CHRISTMAS TIME IS HERE AGAIN

A fantastic sitar-drenched cover of The Beatle’s Christmas Time Is Here Again from the rather irritatingly named Elephant Stone. You can find it on the PSYCH-OUT CHRISTMAS compilation album.

PIG CROSBY     WHITE CHRISTMAS

Pig Crosby is yet another pseudonym employed by V/VM, itself a pseudonym for experimental producer and sound collagist James Leland Kirby, who also releases superb hauntological works under the name of The Caretaker. His album THE V/VM CHRISTMAS PUDDING is actually quite torturous in a chin-rubbingly avant-garde sort of way and will quite possibly never get played again round these here parts, a theme I underline by playing that unfortunately hilarious scene from Gremlins wherein Phoebe Cates tells the tale of why she hates Christmas.

VIBRAVOID     CHRISTMAS ON EARTH

Vibravoid bring a typically wigged-out kaleidoscopic krautrock trip to the proceedings with the opening track from their aptly named DISTORTIONS LP, released in 2009. Not so much Christmas On Earth, this is what Christmas must sound like on the very edge of outer space with the hand brake off.

THE GOONS    THE INTERNATIONAL CHRISTMAS PUDDING

Were The Goons psychedelic in any meaningful sense of the word? Now that I’ve put it like that, then the answer is probably “yes - in any meaningful sense of the word”. They were irreverent, surreal and unlike anything heard before; they literally changed the way you heard the world, so do please enjoy Part 1 of The International Christmas Pudding, first broadcast in December 1955.

BEAULIEU PORCH     SIMON CHRISTMAS

Mind De-Coder favourite Beaulieu Porch is Simon Berry, who is also Tillsammans Records. In a better world, this would be the Christmas # 1. It shimmers and sparkles like a Christmas tree decoration December, where other songs have all the joy of dead Christmas tree in February.

THE GOONS     THE INTERNATIONAL CHRISTMAS PUDDING

Part 2. Parts 3-6 must sadly wait for another day, but it all ends well.

BEAULIEU PORCH     THE SECOND SIMON CHRISTMAS

Beaulieu Porch's Second Simon Christmas seems to have been created for a competition run by The Guardian for original Christmas songs. It’s an unreal and ghostly re-working of the first version as seen through a kaleidoscopic viewfinder wherein haunting recitals of 'God rest ye merry Gentlemen' are woozily fractured upon a coalescing carousel of hammer film scores and Victoriana tavern shanties. Marvellous, as you can imagine. I believe that at some point Berry released both versions as a single. Essential Christmas listening.

THE BLUES MAGOOS     JINGLE BELLS

This 1967 release saw the Blues Magoos reaching out to the public in a, some might say, optimistic attempt at commercial success. It failed dismally, after which the group returned to their garage-blues roots, but if you’ve ever wondered what a Christmas carol crossed with Bo Diddley’s Who Do You Love? might sound like then this is it.

ROTARY CONNECTION       SILENT NIGHT CHANT

Rotary Connection’s PEACE is one of my favourite Christmas albums of all time. This is the sound of a band taking you just that little bit higher for Christmas, and Minnie Ripperton’s voice just soars.

JOY UNLIMITED     ALL EARTH AND ALL HEAVEN ARE SILENT

This stunning track, a mix of stoner folk and funky cosmic vibes, is taken from one of the rarer relics of the Krautrock heyday, namely a double album new and traditional Christmas songs from an album called HEAVY CHRISTMAS, released in 1971 on the classic Pilz record label before the semi-infamous Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser took over and transformed it into a cosmic folk label. None of the featured acts are among the upper tier of Krautrock acts – can you imagine what a Christmas album featuring the likes of Faust, Neu!, Amon Düül and Ash Ra Tempel would have sounded like? – but the little known Joy Unlimited’s contribution is fantastic.

BALDUIN     THROUGH THE SNOW

Playful psychedelia from Swiss multi-instrumentalist Balduin and a track from his debut album ALL IN A DREAM, released in 2014, in which he seems to be channelling the spirit of Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayres and a lot of acid.

YOKO ONO AND THE FLAMING LIPS     MERRY CHRISTMAS (WAR IS OVER)

Yoko Ono and The Flaming Lips come together for a suitably wigged-out rendition of Lennon’s Merry Christmas (War Is Over) for the Amazon Prime compilation ALL IS BRIGHT, a 40-song holiday playlist that came out recently. While Lennon and Ono's original is a simple holiday song with an affecting message bolstered by the beautiful children's choir singing in the background, the Flaming Lips turn the track into a striking psychedelic carol. Anchored by spiraling synth lines and frontman Wayne Coyne's blown-out vocals, Ono descends from the sky with an ethereal rendering of the song's refrain amidst classic Christmas song traits like par-rum-pa-pum-pum drumming and big, booming bells. Make of it what you will.

THE FAB FOUR     JINGLE BELLS

I had to finish the show with this track simply for the genius refrain: “It is snowing…it is snowing” which is pretty much worth the cost of the album A CHRISTMAS WITH THE FAB FOUR alone. The rest of the album admittedly grates somewhat after a while, Christmas song lyrics sung mash-up stylee against Beatle’s tunes, but every now and then The Fab Four, America’s premier Beatle’s tribute band, pull something magic out of the Christmas stocking.

PIZZICATO 5     SILENT NIGHT

But to really finish the show, here is a beautifully unadorned version of my favourite carol Silent Night by Pizzicato 5. Singer Nomiya Maki’s voice has such a heart-breakingly forlorn quality to it that it makes of the song something quite desolate, fragile and rare. It opens the otherwise splendidly up-beat Shibuya-kei 2002 compilation A JAPANESE CHRISTMAS MIX, a household favourite in these here parts, as you might imagine.

Merry Christmas.

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