SOUNDTRACK: SUFJAN STEVENS Christmas Unicorn: Songs for Christmas, Vol. X (2010).
This is the final disc in the second Sufjan Steven Christmas box set. It is comprised of mostly shorter songs except for the final one which is 13 minutes long.
Interspersed in the disc are three short instrumentals (under a minute each). “It Came Upon A Midnight Clear” “Angels We Have Heard On High” and “We Three Kings” are all pretty with flutes and minimal electronics.
The more traditional songs are “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” which sounds very much like a Sufjan song with some fun electronic sounds and orchestration and some unusual vocals. “Up on the Housetop” features lots of drums and layered vocals. It is the standard version but tinkered with with in fun ways. “We Need a Little Christmas” is a fun and traditional version with choral vocals.
The other three tracks are originals from Sufjan. “Happy Karma Christmas” a slow track of mostly drums and echoed vocals. It reminds me of Beck’s discoey electronic moments. “Justice Delivers Its Death” is based on the lyrics of “Silver and Gold” (from Rudolph) but it is a much darker song (obviously, given the title) and sounds nothing like it.
The final track is “Christmas Unicorn.” It’s a sweet song with funny/thoughtful lyrics. After three minutes it turns into a nice instrumental. At the four minute mark a new refrain begins. It sounds like the song is going to fade to end, but it doesn’t. At 6:30, drums come back in and the song takes off with more singers and a fugue style of interweaving vocals. At 7:36 a new melody is introduced which is, Joy Divisions’ “Love will Tear Us Apart.” They incorporate that into the fugue vocals and it works very well. It’s a strange song and very unChristmassey, but it’s very cool and quite catchy by the end.
I don’t enjoy this second box set as much as the first, since it is so unChristmassey, but it has some really interesting songs on it.
[READ: December 13, 2014] Bolaño: A Biography in Conversations
I don’t often read biographies about authors I like, but once in a while one will catch my eye. I knew Maristain’s name from Bolaño’s last published interview, so I was curious what she would do with this collection. It was translated by Kit Maude, and I am also curious about some of the words that Maude chose to use (the word savage/savages comes up an awful lot when not referring to The Savage Detectives). But overall it was an easy, quick read.
As the subtitle suggests, Maristain has compiled a loose biography of Bolaño based on interviews with others. Some are interviews that she has conducted and others are previously existing interviews that she has cobbled together. The people interviewed are primarily his family and his fellow poets/novelists/friends.
Bolaño was born April 28 1953 in Santiago de Chile. Soon after, they moved to Valparaiso, and then other smaller towns in Chile. In 1968 they moved to the Mexico City because of his mother’s asthma (although he never set foot in Sonora, the scene of the crimes in 2666). They lived close to the Olympic park and were within walking distance of the Olympic torch during the 1968 Olympics.
He had a difficult upbringing, with his parents splitting up and his mother moving out and taking his sister with her. Roberto, meanwhile, stayed with his father. They eventually had a falling out and Roberto went twenty years without seeing him. His father was a boxer and an opinionated man, and there are lots of quotes from him in the book.
In 1977 Bolaño left Mexico for Spain (and never went back) and that’s when we start getting into his publishing history. (more…)
