As many of you know I not only love Christmas music, I collect it, all of it. The good , the bad and the ugly. As we approach this holiday season I would like to expose as much yuletide cheer in music as I can. Today we focus on a fairly new genre of Christmas music, the Ambient side of Christmas.
That’s where Youtuber MaddDiaz comes in. He has taken Wham’s classic holiday ballad, “Last Christmas,” and slowed it down by a factor of eight, turning it into a 36 minute ambient stunner. It’s lush and dreamy, garnering comparisons to Brian Eno and Autechre, though we would recommend checking out the similarly slowed-down original video that accompanies the song. It starts to seem eerily like an Angelo Badalamenti track, with an extremely David Lynch-esque video. However you choose to experience it, it’s pretty great, and no longer sounds the slightest bit like a Christmas tune.
Next up, Ken Elkinson a Los Angeles multi-instrumentalist who puts a unique ambient spin on 16 well known and obscure Christmas songs.
How about The BFW Christmas Album? BFW Recordings are an
independent music label. THey share the best music from around the world for free! You can't beat that. Their music is a mixture of Ambient, Indie, Experimental, Electronica and much more. They have been putting out an annual Christmas Album since 2010.
Here is the description from their 2010 release. "A while back, we invited BFW artists and our friends to submit songs for a BFW Christmas Album. We left the scope of these contributions quite wide-you could write a song with a Christmas or Winter feel, or maybe a song for your love ones, or even get out the sleigh bells and croon like Nat King Cole!
Very unique songs and while they are not your usual recognizable Christmas melodies, there is some great music to sit by fire with your Christmas tree lights on and sip a nice glass of fine french cognac.
More information on all their Christmas recordings can be found at:
www.bfwrecordings.com
2014
2013
Next up The Neon Ambience, A Neon Christmas
The Neon Ambience have recorded their own unique versions of some very popular Christmas Carols, and they're yours to download and share with your friends for free. Take a little Christmas cheer, add a touch of Radiohead, a dash of Neon, a sprinkle of Nine Inch Nails, a tipple of Sigur Ros, a few sleigh bells and a lot of Ambience, and you're somewhere close.
And Finally! Me. I have always loved Ambient music, matter of fact I've been working on a long term ambient Christmas album for the past year and I hope to have it done possibly next year. Here is one of the tracks I composed and recorded in my studio when it was snowing outside. Appropriately titled "Snow."
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