An excitement descends in the factory of theoretical maxims. The supervisor of the infinite typewriting monkey department sends his manager an alert. Not a red alert reserved for the operation’s aspirational line of Shakespeare, but the – as yet unused – amber alert. The manager pushes his glasses up his nose slightly to squint at the piece of paper that’s been thrust upon his person. Between the smears of pureed banana, he can almost make out a line amongst the seemingly random typed characters dotted over the tattered piece of A4.
AlbUm iDEa: forMer mEMbeRS of LUNa & GalaXIE500 do A XMas record wiTH tHe gUY fROm spAcemEN4
And despite getting one character a digit out and displaying a flagrant disregard for capitalisation (admittedly offset slightly by its perfect use of a colon), it proved to be one prophetic primate.
Dean & Britta formed from the demise of cult US band Luna who, in turn, formed after Dean (Wareham) left Galaxie 500.
Sonic Boom is the long-time stage name of Peter Kember, former member of Spacemen3, producer, and general auteur of many names. Since 2020, Mr Boom has released All Things Being Equal and a collaborative effort with Panda Bear, Reset.
It would not be a stretch to refer to both of these albums as borderline seminal.
So it seemed like a bit of a lane-change when it was announced they would release a seasonal long-player as a triumvirate, covering Willie Nelson songs, Christmas carols, and John Lennon. Something about the dreamy, synthesised chunks of pulsing spacedronekrautpsych you would expect from such a collaboration doesn’t quite gel with the immediate presumptions of a Christmas record – until you’ve heard this specific spacedronekrautpsych Christmas record.
As a 14-song background playlist, it is not going to be suitable for most family gatherings, given Grandad and the ‘pit suhin’ bouncy oan’ auntie are going to be completely weirded out by even the version of ‘Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy’ and will query the language choice for ‘Stille Nacht’. However, if you are going to have cool people sheltering from the December cold at some point in your gaff then it’s a perfectly involved and seasonally appropriate record, with enough shimmery reverb and pulsing delays to power a semi-automatic reindeer sleigh.
Individual highlights include a soothingly hugesounding version of ‘Do You Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown?’ from the James Bond film everyone forgets about, and a cover of Beverly Ann’s ‘He’s Coming Home’ that contains a lead line which is either a synth that sounds like a banjo or a banjo that’s been made to sound like a synth.
I have a policy of broad opposition to Christmas albums, but this makes it onto my list of five acceptable festive 33s and, to be honest, the Bootsy Collins one only barely scrapes in to make the list that long.
A Peace of Us is out on November 22nd, via Carpark Records. Available here.
Main Photo Credit: Samantha Tyson
