Christmas music: seasonal highlight or necessary evil? Whatever your opinion, we're here to help with your party playlist. Worry about more important things--like mistletoe placement.
It often seems that celebrity couples always release Christmas tracks around Christmas time. Maybe it's a cash grab or maybe it's an easy way to get your product on the radio. I don't know. Some recent examples would be Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman and Zoey Deschanel and M.Ward (c'mon, they probably fooled around). This particular track comes from two artists I adore and respect. Unbeknownst to me, Emmy The Great has been dating Tim Wheeler (of Ash ) for quite sometime now and so it would only make sense for them to commemorate their [...]
Frank Yang Okay, let's get this over with. More than any year in recent memory, 2011 was tough to distill down to a top ten - not because there was a dearth of notable releases, but because there was a glut of them. Plenty of records this year were good to great - from those you'd expect as much from, those who surprised by upping their game and/or those who you'd simply never heard of before - but head-and-shoulders standouts? More of a chore than I expected. But here are ten [...]

Frank Yang For the first part of Thursday night, I was - as recounted yesterday - happily seeing my favourite band deliver the best performance of theirs I'd ever seen. So why, in the name of all that's holy, did I leave early? Because of Anna Calvi . The British-Italian artist released one of my favourite records of 2011 (ooh, year-end list spoiler!) in her self-titled debut , but fate seemed determined to keep me from seeing her perform it live. First, her CMW and SXSW showcases - which were legion [...]
56 mins : 34 secs | 38.8 mb Emmy The Great And Tim Wheeler "Christmas Day (I Wish I Was Surfing)" ( 02:35 ) This Is Christmas [ amazon ] website | myspace | facebook Parker Lewis & Matilda Berggren "All Alone On Christmas" (04:59) A Polaroid For Christmas [ free download ] website | myspace | facebook Kula Shaker [...]

Facebook Almost four years on from their last dispatch, Spiritualized has announced that their seventh studio album Sweet Heart Sweet Light will be released on March 19, 2012. It's about the same gap that separated 20082s Songs In A&E and 20032s Amazing Grace , but that delay was compounded by Jason Pierce's near-death experience. This time any extenuating factors in the delay fell into the more decidedly benign category; new labels in both Europe and America, recitals and reissues to mark the 10th anniversary of [...]
![CARPARK RECORDS, SHE & HIM, EMMY THE GREAT AND TIM WHEELER [HOLIDAY'S TOP RELEASES]](http://cdn.elbo.ws/posts/3910937_lg.jpg)
For this week's edition of "Best Releases", we've compiled an overview of the best holiday music out this year. The biggest news of the week is Carpark Records' limited edition 12-inch vinyl compilation, which they're giving away as a free gift to fans! Also getting into the holiday spirit are She & Him (@sheandhim), who deliver a vintage-inspired block of classics, and Emmy The Great (@emmy_the_great) and Tim Wheeler who take Christmas in the opposite direction by creating their own carols based on off-kilter and sometimes unsettling ideas. Both [...]

Just Music That I Like's Twenty Five Favourite Abums of 2011 aka The Best 25 Albums of the Year Part Two Direct Links to Albums: 25 - 21 // 20 - 16 // 15 - 11 // 10 - 6 // 5 - 1 20. She Keeps Bees - Dig On Facebook / Order CD/LP She [...]

top of the morning. today, i needed something a little different to listen to considering i have been listening to the same 10-15 records for the past 6 months or so. i happened to stumble upon british songstress emmy the great's sophomore record, virtue . im only about half way through it, but i dig it, and is definitely calming my heavy soul. its poppy in the way that tori amos is poppy, but she doesnt sound anything like her and thats for the better, imo. if you be a fan of the likes of feist, martha [...]

"Starlight, Starlight" By Exlovers. Almost time for us bloggers to start tipping who we hope will do well in 2012, well here's a spoiler, exlovers are definitely on our list. They may not be new kids on the block but their debut album ' Moth' is due in Spring next year and promises to be one of our (and hopefully your) major musical highlights in 2012. " Starlight, Starlight" is available as a free download (above) and hints at, rather like an elegantly flaunted stocking top, the promise yet to [...]

Beat London's Summer Camp likes them some make-believe, that much is clear. Their first appearance on the musical radar was in the guise of a Swedish septet with a taste for vintage photographs who'd met at a Summer retreat - hence their name. It didn't take too long for them to be outed as the English duo of Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey, which may have disappointed fans of elaborate back stories but should have done nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of those who like enthusiastic boy-girl indie-pop. Not that [...]

For many, songs about Christmas are as much a part of the jollity of the holiday season as opening presents or getting progressively drunk in front of awful Christmas TV specials. Good ones can get you feeling festive and excited about every day you peel off your advent calendar, or remind you of memories from Christmases past. Although it's not just the cheesy ones that resonate, there have been some rather fantastic more alternative takes on the Christmas song which are equally adored such as the brilliantly sarcastic 'Christmas Wrapping' by The Waitresses or the infamous slanging match between The [...]
A video to get you in the Christmas spirit from Tim Wheeler (Ash) & Emmy The Great. New single 'Home for the Holidays' is taken from their Christmas album 'This is Christmas

'This is Christmas' is a festive album Brit singer Emmy the Great wrote with Ash-frontman Tim Wheeler. It's released next week (you can check it on Spotify ), it features mostly original songs. You can pick up Christmas Day (I wish I was surfing) on their Facebook . In 2002, Emmy recorded a Christmas song with Lightspeed Champion. Very fragile, very cool. Emmy the Great & Lightspeed Champion - Christmas in Prison
Tis The Season... Here is a video to get you in the Christmas spirit from Tim Wheeler (Ash) & Emmy The Great. The new single 'Home for the Holidays' is taken from their Christmas album This is Christmas . The 'This is Christmas' album that Tim has recorded with Emmy the Great will be out on November 21st and is available now to be pre-order from Amazon and iTunes .

another leakage to get you in the festive mood is the collaborative new long_one from the TIM WHEELER and the EMMY THE GREAT . THIS IS CHRISTMAS D.O.B : November 21, 2011 Label : Infectious Tracklist : 1. This Is Christmas Intro 2. Marshmallow World 3. Snowflakes 4. Christmas Moon 5. Christmas Day (I Wish I Was Surfing) 6. (Don't Call Me) Mrs. Christmas 7. Home For The Holidays 8. Zombie Christmas 9. Sleigh Me 10. Jesus The Reindeer 11. See You Next Year via : Hotfile [...]
Watch the video from Tim Wheeler (Ash) & Emmy The Great's new single 'Home for the Holidays' is taken from their Christmas album ' This Is Christmas out Nov 21st.

Frank Yang It's hard to believe it was only a month ago that I was roaming the streets of Reykjavik, getting ready to dive headlong into Iceland Airwaves . Not that long ago, but enough to welcome a reminder of how much fun it all was, which I got from the Toronto Iceland Arts Festival at the El Mocambo on Sunday night, which as part of its celebration of all things Icelandic included the importing of a couple of the country's finest up-and-coming bands. I had thought that being the [...]

This week featuring Mode Moderne, Two Wounded Birds, Eleanor Friedberger, Young Husband, Ellie Lawson, Flow Machines, Emily Barker , The Finger, Little Daggers and The John Peel Approved Festive 50. ****************************** ** Mode Moderne. Vancouver's Mode Moderne seem to like the dark side of life and come across rather like The Arcade Fire meets Depeche Mode in a graveyard, which believe me is a good thing. The darkness, which makes Nick Cave seem positively sanguine is all enveloping, [...]