Out in the Winter Night

 

With Christmas grabbing people out of the everyday flow and into its appetising world of magic escapism, it’s a good chance to delve into a bag of promo CDs that has come to resemble Santa’s heaving sack as it’s gathered girth over the last year.

 

The first dip in gives me a retrospective handful of John Mouse. The first track on his self-released 2006 It‘s a “Universal” set, ‘Strumming Hard On Your Chinese Fender’, is a straight-faced, haunting spaghetti-Western harmonica solo that has a perfectly lonely feel, like it's being played by a lover waiting for his long-lost sweetheart in a Western-movie skeleton town. From the same set, 'Candles' has a hint of Eels’ more left-field sounds, a genuine mood and strangeness, along with Mouse's eerie technology-gone-mad vocals and a beguiling shanty sway, and ‘Sweet Full Moon’ is desolate and quite beautiful in a similarly contorted way, like the long-lost lover has arrived in the desert town at last. These three stand-out tracks show Mouse to be at his best when straight-facedly playing with electronic textures and abstracted moods.

 

Silent Alliance’s self-released ‘Cities On Fire’ CD single comes with the passive face of a female brunette to the backdrop of blurred city lights, and inside is a heady rush of keyboards and guitar that evokes night-time city skylines and the rush of romance. Leading track ‘Cities On Fire’ whips up a storm full of hope and lustre in lands of loneliness and isolation, and B-Side ‘The Edge of Town’ is a warm emotional ballad that buzzes with excitement at the endless possibilities of modern life. Over a year travelling back and forth between home and Cardiff means I’ve lost the press release to be able to give you more information on the band, but for sure Silent Alliance tap into something ace that‘s worthy of your attention.

 

Last month Darren Hayman was prey to a violent mugging outside a Nottingham venue after a gig. His girlfriend amusingly relayed news to worried fans via email that the cult ex-Hefner man had “luckily” suffered the “best kind of fractured skull” and would be back on his feet in no time. Until then, if you’re missing your usual Hayman fix, you’d do worse than visit the eponymous-titled debut set from his bluegrass band Hayman, Trout, Watkins and Lee. The band also features Dave Tattersal of The Wave Pictures, and the LP is a smiling set where two of the underground’s foremost Pop poets pick up the bluegrass baton and run with it. The pick of the great bunch of tracks here is Hayman’s ’Dirty Tube Train’, in which he reels off a master class of lyrics on a prurient tube train encounter through Golders Green. It’s another case of Hayman doing for London what Woody Allen did for New York - reeling off tales of everyday city life and individual pre-occupations that wile and amuse with a certain wonder. Another highlight, Tattersal’s ‘Fine Young Cannibals’ rolls with his own trademark slow lyrical enchantment: “We are beautiful animals / we’re not racing for gold / we’re not fine young cannibals / we can work when we’re old”. Released last year on Fortuna Pop!, Hayman, Watkins, Trout and Lee is bluegrass John Hartford-style, ringing out with personal flavours, genuine emotions and laughs.

 

Bishi I remember was being groomed as the Eastern Lily Allen, and the opening track on her Night at the Circus set on Gryphon Records, ’Nights at the Circus’, has the clean, pristine, polished sound of Allen’s chart-toppers, only with an Eastern musical content. There’s some nuggets here for sure. The stripped-down ‘Grandmother‘s Floor‘ has a dark, evocative gypsy folk enchantment. ‘On My Own Again’ has a heady beat and lyrics in which Bishi, if we ignore the self-pity, appears more as a passionate mistress of the night, surrounded by Eastern instrumentation that now comes alive. ‘Namaste‘ is sweet and slow-burning, only let down at the end by its clichéd whispering of “Namaste” (a poetic Sanskrit greeting adopted by yoga masters and healing practitioners the world over, perhaps sometimes used in a grating and glib manner), while ‘Night Bus Home‘ hints at further depths of lyrical and musical enchantment. But despite hints, unfortunately the heavy majority of Night at the Circus is music for tourists, with not much that penetrates beyond the surface and the confines of the safe and pleasant, and maybe profitable.

 

The 12 Days of Christmas compilation on Bubblewrap Records too has its fair share of niceness and self-pity you could say, but also a few bands who realise the teeming world of wonder that musicians can reach out, grab, and twist, and of the special realm of expression Christmas opens up. The stand-out tracks on 12 Days of Christmas are from bands with a certain warmth and lyrical intricacy. Allo, Darlin’'s ‘Silver Swans in NYC’ has just a guitar and a plaintive female vocal over the top, dreaming of better places and better things in what can be a cold and lonely time of year. The Bobby McGee’s’ ‘Ladies Dancing (on Eastbourne Pier)’ is a ukulele/fiddle/trombone shanty interlude which paints a warm and ghostly picture of the seaside town. Silence at Sea’s ‘Lords Keep Leaping (Snatch Sweetness from the Bleakness)’ rolls out on light drums and a moody guitar, singer Laura weaving underplayed melodies in her uniquely moving voice as the song playfully sparkles, full of Christmas dreaming.  

 

The Rocky Nest’s ‘Five Golden Rings from the Hi 5 Kings’ lilts away, subtle horns giving it a warm Christmas glow. The School add rays of winter lights with their ‘Drummer Boy’ - lead-singer Liz Hunt’s dreamy and loving lyrics floating out over a tune shimmering with xylophone pops and delicate female backing vocals. But the LP’s highlight comes with Lucky Delucci’s ‘Pipers Piping’, a creeping, labyrinthine slow burner that captures the starry night-time glow and alternative wonder of Christmas. The song is a tender questioning of spirit flush full of fiery pagan imagery, singer Josef Prygodzicz’s lyrical flourishes gently evoking the world of truth and beauty that exists below the surface, its playful image of reindeers burning at night giving way at the end to a startlingly pretty gypsy folk dance.

 

A demo recording from Oxford’s evocatively-named Scarlett in the Wilderness, ’Queen of the Blood Red Hand’ rounds off our Christmas adventure, a twisting, aching gypsy ballad which has the dual fascination of a deep vocal absorption and a dancing, whirling-dervish musical shimmer. 'Queen of the Blod Red Hand' sings with sultry Eastern European tones, and has a poetic pathos to warm the iciest of winter nights.  

 

Snow falls outside and the mountains hold far too much excitement to stay inside, but hopefully a small mixture of music has been uncovered where the coca-cola fizz gives way to the special Christmas glow.