Black Christmas
A Christmas carol, in the middle of May?
The recording of “Velocity Girl” last night put me in mind of this catchy little seasonal offering that I recorded towards the end of 2006, as a private release for distribution to friends and colleagues in place of Christmas cards. Given that I was in the final few months of singing with folk group The Village Wakes at the time, it met with some fairly interesting reactions.
The story behind it is this: one evening I was musing idly to myself, and found myself wondering what would happen if doom-metal funsters Sunn O))) tried their hand at recording a Christmas carol. I decided to find out.
Recording this was pretty simple; there are just three tracks: heavily de-tuned guitar, bass, and a Xasthur-inspired vocal performance that makes me sound as though I’m being burned alive at the bottom of a well. You’ll no doubt be pleased to know that no recontructive throat surgery was required in the days immediately following the recording session.
The lyrics are from a traditional West Midlands version of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”, although as befits the genre, you’ll be lucky if you can make any of them out. Around the six-minute mark you should be able to hear the words “We wish you a merry Christmas”, and the dementedly-repeated phrase at the end is in fact “A PIE! A PIE! A PEPPERCORN! A PIE!”
Nobody said that all Black Metal had to be miserable, after all.