One last album from 2025, and then I'm done. Thank you for putting up with me again.

100. Laura Cannell - Brightly Shone the Moon
https://brawlrecords.bandcamp.com/album/brightly-shone-the-moon

Put this on with your Christmas breakfast, or Thursday dinner, or whatever it is you're doing now. It is a Christmas album - the only one out this year (that I've heard) to have particularly grabbed my attention - and it's a traditional Christmas album. But when I say traditional, I don't mean the popular ideas of what 'Christmas tradition' means that have grown up in recent generations. The traditions here are a lot older (as anyone familiar with Cannell's previous medieval-leaning work might expect).

I'll leave Cannell herself to describe what you're getting:
“The sound of ancient carols drift through a deep green winter forest. Branches are heavy with snow. Just out of sight is the sound of a strange rural village band processing over the crunchy pebbles of the churchyard and into the medieval church.

Violins and pipe organs glitch and echo, as half remembered melodies sweep towards you on a bluster of icy wind. Traces of familiar festive songs flicker around you, almost cosy but they are distant as you stand, boots in deep snow, alone."


May we all find our way in from the cold this season, be that figuratively or literally. Or both.

#2025music #music