Loose Tapestries - Can't Wait For Christmas ★★
"Thank you for the joystick," sings Noel Fielding, who clearly has some generous friends. "Thank you for the socks. Thank you for the Rolex and thank you for the yacht... But the stationary is going in the dustbin." Festive singles usually feature sleigh bells, snow and saccharine expressions of goodwill. The Mighty Boosh man has opted instead for a pretty heavy dose of surrealism. "My wife is a walnut," he offers at one point, before Idris Elba raps a verse about wanting an Xbox for Christmas. Go figure.
Phoenix - Alone On Christmas Day ★★★★
Sofia Coppola's Netflix special A Very Murray Christmas was... kind of a mess really. On what planet is Baby, It's Cold Outside still considered a Christmas classic? But one undeniable triumph was French band Phoenix's cameo as hotel chefs. Invited by the star of the piece to "play something nobody knows". The band do just that, performing their a version of a never- released song the Beach Boys wrote in the 1970s for a Christmas album never got made. This rendition (accompanied by Murray, Jason Schwartzman and the New York Dolls' David Johansen) succeeds because it possesses the only quality any Christmas song really needs, which is heart. All profits from the single go to UNICEF.
Cian Nugent - Lost Your Way ★★★
Cian Nugent has long been Ireland's most talented guitarists. And as of more recently, he's also one of our more idiosyncratic vocalists. His new album Night Fiction is out January 29th.
Margo Price - Hurtin' (On The Bottle) ★★★★
Margo Price is the first country artist signed to Jack White's Nashville record label and her gutsy singing style already places her in the lineage of some of that genre's greatest heroines. A debut album, Midwest Farmer's Daughter, is due out March 26th.
