True to my traditions I’ve collected some new Christmas songs this year also, which I’m going to present here today.

Our friends in Crying Day Care Choir have recorded a Christmas EP with four tracks, called “Christmas Day Care Choir”. What’s extra nice about this is that they are donating all income from the album to Musikhjälpen during this week, i.e. until December 15th. Musikhjälpen is a project run by the public TV and Radio in Sweden each year, collecting money for people in need. This year it’s about women’s rights to survive pregnancies. If you’d like to help the band to help, you can just click download in the player below.

YAST presented their album debut earlier this year and walks out of it with this fine Christmas song, “If Santa Ain’t Real”, accompanied by Alice Boman on backing vocals.

Magnus Bergman has worked hard with releasing singles this year, and it’s only logical that he would make a Christmas single as well. It’s called “Decembernatt” and is a remake of his own song, this time in a duet version together with Kim Vestin.

And it’s great that Brainpool make a comeback after almost ten years of silence, and they do that with this Christmas single “The Last Christmas”:

Tenonsaw, who released the album “Avenging Angels” during the Autumn, also wanted to contribute to the Christmas ambience. Of course they also want to experiment, and they do this by combining Mariah Careys “All I Want For Christmas Is You” and U2:s “All I Want Is You” into this song:

Next up is some lovely classical sounding Christmas jazz from Gunhild Carling, here with her new single “Winter’s Day”:

I’m finishing with celtic punk rockers Finnegan’s Hell, who serve us a Christmas song in the spirit of social realism, as they write, “Drunken Christmas (An Irish Christmas Song)”:

I hope you can find your Christmas spirit in this post; there are quite different versions to choose from here above. Merry Christmas to you, and thank you for coming here reading my posts and most of all for listening to the music.

I’m starting the day with a single premiere here on Meadowmusic. It’s the duo Brother North who are releasing the song “Rain Song” today, their first official single release. There’s a b-side too, “Krummi”, which is sung in Icelandic.

The duo Freyr Flodgren and Lucas Enqvist have known each other since they were ten years old, and they say that they more or less have been living together as brothers since then. They are living together today in a collective in the home town Umeå, a collective which has become something of a gathering point for musicians in their town. The song “Rain Song” feels like a natural step from what we’ve heard before, and now with beautiful string arrangements added, their acoustic music feels enchantingly nature romantic, and Freyr’s warm, open vocals have really found a home in these surroundings.

Brother North on Facebook – on Soundcloud

Tim Schmidt is back with a new album, “Tinar”, where he, like on the last album “Dog“, varies between more traditional folk songs and songs where he with small means stretches and experiments with the format. Well, there are just two traditional song tracks on the album, but those are also among the best songs I’ve heard with Tim, and “Everything is gonna be ok” is magical in it’s naked simplicity. I like the instrumental tracks also and the ambience he creates, but sometime it feels too short, like if it stays with an idea I want to hear more of. To hunger for more after an album is not a bad rating, though.

Tim Schmidt on Tumblr – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Bandcamp

And now we’re changing the scene and the tempo completely from the last post, and we sit down looking out over a calm landscape where the grey skies is barely visible through the light mist and it’s getting dark soon. It’s Old Lost John, hailing from Malmö, who sets up this melancholic peaceful scene with his quiet vocals, guitar and earthy close folk-Americana on his EP “Caving In”. Here are two songs.

Old Lost John’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Bandcamp

Earlier this Autumn Piroth finished their seasonal art project “Djupa skogen” by releasing the fourth single “Virvlande höst”. Simultaneously the mini album and art box “Djupa skogen” was completed with these four melancholic, acoustic folk songs together with a piano version of “Djupa skogen” with Patricia Naumanen.

Piroths site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Rara – on Soundcloud