Strange Daisy Records, Kristian Noel Pedersen, Sara Noelle, and More Update Christmas

Laufey, by Nicole Mago

Conventional wisdom says that all people want from Christmas music is nostalgia, which is why most all-Christmas radio stations focus tightly on the top 150 of so tracks. The number of new Christmas releases every year says there’s more to the story than that, and it’s not simply artists throwing a song in the ring in hopes that it will become another “All I Want for Christmas is You.”

That hope certainly lives, but many of the artists that I talk to on “The Twelve Songs of Christmas” podcast and the ones focused on at Christmas Underground and Christmas A Go-Go show too much musical intelligence to think of their songs as lottery tickets. They’re making music that reflects their own nuanced relationships with the holiday, the culture that has elevated it, and the past that framed it.

New Orleans’ Strange Daisy Records released the excellent A Strange Daisy Christmas this holiday season, with remakes of Christmas classics and new songs by members of Louisiana’s indie music community. Everybody took a full swing on the album, so even when songs are not to your taste, you can still respect the effort. I like the hard, psychedelic turn New Fools’ “Two XMAS” takes half-way through, and the way loucey dials down the rah-rah on their version of Darlene Love’s “Christmas (bAbYpLeAze CoMeHoMe).”

Haunted House Party’s “Hang Up Your Stocking” is the DJ act’s most linear thought and heaviest groove to date, but the track that resonates hardest is The Self-Help Tapes’ version of “Christmas Treat.” The song started life as a weird little Saturday Night Live late-show sketch, then Julian Casablancas of The Strokes gave it real rock ‘n’ roll juice. That’s what you hear in The Self-Help Tapes’ version—a desire to find that kind of rock ‘n’ roll energy attached to Christmas, and maybe the desire to be cool enough to walk at least a little in Casablancas’ shoes.

Toronto’s Kristian Noel Pedersen released his 17th EP or album of Christmas music in the last month. That has been a major part of his musical identity, and you can hear his growth as an artist in his output. Bullshit & Gift Wrapping features Pedersen at his most direct. He has shelved the character Saul McCartney that gave a few albums a Kinks-like conceptual through line, and while he had the chops to execute last year’s Sauliday Party, the small, sympathetic, well-observed details make his songs. The people in his songs are doing the best they can in awkward if not difficult situations, and Christmas adds both tension and magic in his songs.

Sara Noelle went the other way. This year the Los Angeles-based artist released her sixth Christmas digital single, and “I Am Falling Snow” is meditative, letting the sound of her voice echo until the words are post-syllabic sounds. The songwriting is barely gestural, letting the way the phrase loses recognizable shape do the work. That magic comes with its own tension as the moment of peace inspired by a wintry walk in the woods and made possible by a technological soundscape.

On his Bandcamp page, É Arenas explains, “I've been producing a Christmas cumbia every year for the last eight years. Why? Because Christmas music SUCKS! So i took control and made my own party music. Puro Pinche CUMBIA!” He now has enough songs that he has pulled them together on a vinyl album, Yo Soy Tu Santa.

Arenas is the long-time bass player for Chicano Batman, and Christmas music is a window into the holiday season in Boyle Heights, with songs about ungrateful kids, generous grandmothers, and all the takes on “Mi Burrito Sabanero” you can handle. I love the title track of the album, and this year’s “Go Santa Go” is a high energy shout-along.

People old enough to remember Fine Young Cannibals generally think of Roland Gift kindly, and a new generation is discovering “She Drives Me Crazy” since Chanel has used it in an ad campaign with Dua Lipa and Blackpink’s Jennie.

This season Gift released “Everybody Knows it’s Christmas,” which has its roots in the foundational ‘70s of British Christmas music. He naturally skews things toward pop R&B, but it’s also a sing-along in the mode of Slade and Wizzard.

Laufey looks to the past in a few ways, first with a song as standard as Christmas standards come. Her magic remains her ability to lighten up those old arrangements and add a contemporary snap to her swing.

She also revisits an old trope because when vocalists from the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s sang “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” their star power was the subtext. They presented their Christmas singles or albums like a time out from their careers, and a moment of bonding with the audience because they celebrated Santa too.

For Laufey, the gesture has some pop as it lines up adjacent to her artistic persona, and it marks her as a young classicist at a time when people aren’t sure that’s what they want to be.

The Spanish guitarist Twanguero follows in the footsteps of countless instrumentalists playing versions of Christmas music on Christmas with el Twanguero. It’s a conceptual gesture that artists have made for decades, and it rises or falls with the imagination and craft. Personally, I could go with more twang since Twanguero’s name prompted me to imagine a Morricone Christmas.

Once it’s clear he’s not going to go there, it’s easy to settle into what he actually offers, which is smart, suave takes on holiday music led by Twanguero’s sharp, theatrical guitar. The bossa nova version of “Last Christmas” by Wham! is particularly entertaining, and I like the way he solves the problem of Paul McCartney’s “Wonderful Christmastime” by ditching the words and the synth that was dated 10 minutes after the song hit the market.