The team of MusicAloud wishes all its readers a very merry and musical Christmas!

While you are enjoying your gifts and candies, we give you a musical gift by bringing to you some of the rare Christmas songs we hope you will enjoy.

We three Kings on the Hang Drum – I am in love with this instrument

Zero: Christmas in July – Not exactly a Christmas Song; nevertheless enjoy!

Blackmore’s Night: Emanuel

Jethro Tull: A Christmas Song – Performed by lead man Ian Anderson

Beatles: Christmas Time

Elvis Presley: Elvis Presley O Come All Ye Faithful – An Old tune performed by the genius

Johnny Cash – Performing some good old carols!

Jimi Hendrix – Finally, the master performing Christmas songs!

This year also saw the legendary Bob Dylan releasing his Christmas album. Here are some snippets from his album.

To leave you on a funny note watch this video of carols from David Letterman’s Late Show.

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The first guitar is the Fender Lead II guitar that belonged to Eric Clapton. He gave it to a certain cafe in London to mark his stool. The Cafe hung his guitar as a memorabalia. Pete Townshend of “The Who” then gave the Cafe his own guitar (a Gibson Les Paul) and said “Mine is as good as his”. This is how the entire chain of Hard Rock Cafe’s and their rock memorabalia started..

Turned out to be more difficult than I thought. No one was able to crack this.

Vampire Weekend is one of the coolest indie bands around. Their music is inspired by African pop music, and they call their music Upper West Side Soweto. I had listened to their debut eponymous album. I liked them instantly, their music is very cheery and pleasant. My personal favorites are Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa and Oxford Comma, these two songs were simply fantastic, the instrumentation is very clever and sounds really good!  VW has released a new album, Contra and a single from the album is up for grabs at their website.

This single is called Horchata, named after a  traditional drink .  The song will endear to the Vampire Weekend fans, it’s almost in the same vein as their earlier songs, nevertheless it’s a beautiful song. Its free, go download it and give it a listen.

Bob Dylan would be releasing a holiday album titled “Christmas in the Heart” on the 13^th October. In the true spirit of Christmas, the album is about a giving heart; and not only through the songs. Bob Dylan has made this album as a charity album. That is, all of the royalties in the album that he derives in America will go to Feeding America, an organisation that provides food to the needy people. This is not an album of his original songs but a compilation of Christmas classics such as “Must Be Santa”, “Little Drummer Boy”, “Winter Wonderland” and “Here Comes Santa Claus”. There are totally 15 tracks on the album. Similarly, the international charities will go to similar international organisations. It is expected that a donation equivalent to 4 million meals will be given to Feeding America.
A preview of the album was available on the net since September 17^th. This album is in continuance with Dylan’s shift from serious, political albums to humorous, playful music. The arrangements of the song are quite similar to a traditional Christmas song; however, Dylan’s rusty voice adds a different style to it. The instruments are also pleasant and include Christmas bells, accordions, violins, synthesizers and acoustic guitars.
Holiday albums have previously been released by a number of artists such as James Brown, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Jethro Tull and Beach Boys. Still, making a Christmas album was an unexpected step from an artist like Bob Dylan. However considering the popularity of Bob Dylan and the fact that it is being done for a noble cause, the album will definitely sell like hot cakes during the holiday season.

“It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.”

The Ancient Astronauts  are back, this time with a turntable and a guitar.
Kabanjak and Dogu aka Ancient Astronauts are two hip-hoppers from Cologne, Germany. Ah! German Hip-hop. I was surprised, but then I have only my ignorance to blame, Germany had been fertile ground for  hip-hop for some time. Ancient Astronauts didn’t sound like a hip-hop group name to me and that was just the beginning because Ancient Astronauts is somewhat different from the usual hip-hop stuff you are generally treated to. According to Wikipedia, Ancient Astronauts are extra-terrestrials who visited during the pre-historic times, there are theories which suggest the deities in most of the religions are these ancient astronauts, the Doju figurines from pre-historic Japan being an example.

The Ancient Astronauts from our times have released a new album, We are to answer. The album starts with an airy, atmospheric track called “From the Sky“, as if to signal the landing of the astronauts. The next track is called “I came running“, it is basically  guitar loops and ambient noises mixed with break beats and some grace.“The Classic“ features the alternative hop-hop group Pharcyde. This is classic hip-hop meeting the present. The track is embellished with fusion in the form a flute and some turntable exploits. There is a spacey, weightless feeling to these tracks, with a constant backdrop of break beat. You get a feeling of listening to a hip-hop mutation of Radiohead, low-fi melacholy stuff. In hip-hop circles this kind of music is called down-tempo.

Just when I started categorizing AA as down tempo, “Dark Green Rod” started playing. This song features Ulf Stricker, a German drummer. This is an explosive track and seems to change the tempo of the album completely. Almost a rude awakening, but once you get into the groove you won’t notice anything other than the rhythm. The next song is an evocative number featuring Phat Old Mamas.

In Risin High, AA have roped in Raashan Ahmad. The song brings Gorillaz to my mind. There is a flute playing in between Ahmad’s rap verses and that is very cool. “Lost in Marrakesh” is the kind of song which you can use as back ground score in a movie for a scene when your hero is vainly searching for his heroine among sand dunes with a hot breeze for company. There is very strong Middle Eastern feel to the song (as the name suggests) with the Arabic beats and the sound of bells. The song can easily be  the pick of the album for it’s sheer ingenuity. The blend of varied instruments is perfect and the resulting sound is simply mind blowing. The next number is a reggae track rendered beautifully by Tippa Irie. The next track, “Everybody” sounds like an acid jazz track with lots of guitars and drums. The bass line is superb and elevates the song to a different level all together. Oblivion featuring Azeem and DJ Zeph is a turntable riot. “Surfing the Silvatide” can be called atmospheric reggae, the whole album is made around the concept of an ET visiting earth, having some fun here and finally flying back to space. The final track Crescent Moon kind of validates my theory, this is a trippy track with a sci-fi feel. The song starts with a radio announcer from the 30’s welcoming the travelers “to the sounds of man in space”. The funny thing about this “sounds of man in space” is that space is generally considered devoid of sound as its pure vacuum, all the astronauts will get to hear is their breathing and voices of their colleagues. And towards the latter half of the song with almost 90s left the track goes silent!! I told you, you can’t hear in space! Then after 30s or a creepy voice says something like AA has returned to the space. The sound and mood of the song might have been inspired by classic science fiction movies and has an eerie feeling to it, Through out the album AA have consciously tried to add these sounds to the songs.

The album art is a reference to the Pioneer plaque, which was sent to outer space on NASA’s Pioneer 10 spacecraft, as a “Hi there!” to any alien life form which may find it. Last time when the Ancient Astronauts supposedly came to Earth they were turned into gods, these days the closest thing that you can get to being worshiped is becoming a pop star. Ancient Astronauts have the stuff to make it big, whether it will become reality or not needs to be seen.

On the whole this album is worth its money. Looks like lots of experimentation has gone into this body of work. Considering the amount of fusion it has I would categorize it as World Music. If you are the type of person who likes to listen to new sounds and can appreciate some real creative work, this album might lit up your day.

The world is not going to forget George W. Bush soon and it seems like Green Day won’t make that any easier. Green Day’s latest album 21st Century Breakdown which will hit the stores this Friday the 15th,  carries on from where American Idiot left off. Known for their Bush bashing and angry poetry Green Day has taken it to a new level with this album.  Like American Idiot the new release is a rock opera and tells the story of an American couple. Musically the album matches the brilliance of  it’s predecessor and that’s not a small thing to do, with songs like Boulevard of Broken Dreams and  Wake me up when September ends, American.. was a runaway success and had won Green Day a lot of new fans. Green Day in an interview stated  that the Queen, the Clash and Bruce Springsteen have influenced this release. The album is very much a child of the times we are in and launches a punk attack against “the enemy”. Even though Bush has disappeared to his Texas Ranch, thanks to the Economic Crisis we still have lots of gloomy days ahead and this album has enough anger and energy to fight that off.  Get ready for the breakdown!

In between Green Day performed songs from the latest album for some 250 odd fans at a Oakland club. Here is a video.
21ST CENTURY BREAKDOWN (LIVE)