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┌────────┐
────┤ Info ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
Artist | Tracey Thorn
Title | Tinsel And Lights
Genre | Indie Format | Album
Source | CDDA Time | 38:35
Label | Strange Feeling Records Store | 2012
Catalog | 007STRANGECD Rip | 2015
Bitrate | 226 kbps Size | 65.86 MB
Freq | 44.1 kHz Encoder | Lame 3.98.4
┌────────┐
────┤ Tracks ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
01. Joy 4:00
02. Hard Candy Christmas 3:24
03. Like A Snowman 2:38
04. Maybe This Christmas 2:11
05. In The Cold, Cold Night 2:38
06. Snow 2:39
07. Snow In Sun 2:18
08. Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas 3:16
09. Tinsel And Lights 3:26
10. River 3:24
11. Taking Down The Tree 4:10
12. Sister Winter 4:31
┌────────┐
────┤ Notes ├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
└────────┘
One of the most enduring English singer/songwriters, Tracey Thorn began
making music with Stern Bops and then, more notably, Marine Girls, a
minimalist pop group that released a pair of albums inspired by Young
Marble Giants and the Raincoats. While Marine Girls were active, Thorn
released A Distant Shore, a relatively moody, if similarly skeletal solo
album, on Cherry Red in 1982. Around that time, she met Ben Watt - who was
also signed to Cherry Red - and formed a partnership as Everything But the
Girl. From 1984 through 1999, Thorn and Watt released ten albums that
shifted from indie pop to slick sophisti-pop to downtempo club music.
Additionally, Thorn appeared on recordings by the likes of the Style
Council, the Go-Betweens, and Massive Attack.
There is something about the melancholy quality in Tracey Thorn's voice
that would seem to make the idea of a Christmas album by her improbable.
But "Tinsel and Lights" is no ordinary Christmas album. It is as singular
in its choice of material as Thorn's voice is. Produced by Ewan Pearson
(who helmed 2010's 'Love and Its Opposite'), there is only one standard, in
"Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas". The rest is compiled from
material written by more contemporary composers: Randy Newman, Carol Hall,
Joni Mitchell, Scritti Politti's Green Gartside, Stephin Merritt, Ron
Sexsmith, Low, Jack White, and Sufjan Stevens. Thorn also contributes a
pair of fine originals. For Everything But the Girl fans, Ben Watt plays on
eight of these 12 cuts. Thorn's opener, "Joy", sets the tone for the album.
Backed by her piano, an electric guitar, keyboards, and bass, she lays out
the hard truth of Christmas for many: 'You loved it as a kid/But now you
need it more than you ever did.. We'll gather up our fears/And face down
all the coming years/And all that they destroy/And in their face we throw
our joy' the toughness of that spirit is more vulnerable in Hall's "Hard
Candy Christmas", but it is unwavering. In Sexsmith's "Maybe This
Christmas", Thorn draws out what the season is supposed to mean, even in
the face of human failings. "In The Cold Cold Night" shifts gears. Thorn
strips away the rock histrionics to get at something far more sultry and
bold; it generates real adult heat.
Gartside makes a duet appearance, but not on his "Snow In Sun". On Low's
"Taking Down The Tree", their duet works partly because of the sharp
contrast to the original's musical arrangement (though this one is spare
too) but also in the way their very different voices get at a lyric that
balances sadness and near-instant nostalgia. Thorn wrote the title track,
and its time-weathered wisdom is countered by the cheery arrangement. When
she sings 'Something almost true was in the air', the listener is touched
by notions of Christmases past that nearly lived up to their hype. Yet,
when she offers the closing lines: 'You kissed me in the snow and that was
when/I fell in love with Christmas once again', she turns the narrative on
its head, ending in hope. In Stevens' sad, gray, "Sister Winter", she sends
it off with both an honesty and bravery in the face of loss that echoes the
well wishing "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas". "Tinsel and Lights"
is as emotionally complex as any recording in Thorn's or EBTG's catalog.
While it is a meditation on Christmas, it makes no attempt to manipulate
the listener's feelings. Instead, with its sheer musical quality, and the
depth of tenderness and empathy in Thorn's voice, it highlights the
season's complexities in the face of everyday life.
┌────────┐
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└────────┘