Festive Greetings from Hibernate & Home Normal

Festive Greetings accurately captures the melancholy associated with the Holidays. I hear a lot of cheery, happy, hyper-active Christmas music during this time of year. Generally I can’t relate to any of it at all. While people appear to be happy during this time of year, I feel down. There is no accurate rhyme or reason for it, it just is. That is probably why I enjoy this collection Hibernate and HomeNormal has put together. It is so invitingly slow.

The artists on this collection usually deal with a classical ambient style. Browsing through the titles, one may notice normal Christmas standards like ‘O Holy Night’ and ‘O Christmas Tree’. Offthesky’s treatment is a bit different than one might expect, and Good Weather for an Airstrike someone makes the standard sound lonelier.

I like how much space there is in these songs. They seem to spread out for forever. Some of the songs have a sleepy method to them, such as ‘Silent Night’ one of the few to offer any singing. The voice is barely decipherable, and melts with the soundscape. This one along with Clem Leek’s piece is my two favorite pieces on the entire disc. To me, there’s warmth, like sitting on top of a rusty radiator, feeling the heat rise up, that is probably the feeling I most consistently feel with Christmas: one of quiet and warmth.

Hibernate and Home Normal’s collection gives me this warm sense. I am glad am I not alone in wanting a slow, quiet Christmas. This is ambient Christmas music. It is a reassuring kind of Christmas music. Christmas needs to slow down. I am glad at least ‘Festive Greetings’ understands that. ©

The exclusive CD has been compiled by Jonathan Lees of Hibernate/Rural Colours and has tracks from Antonymes, The Boats, Offthesky, Machinefabriek, Strom Noir, Good Weather for an Airstrike, Ithaca Trio, Isnaj Dui, Wil Bolton, The Frozen Vaults, Konntintent with Leyli, Upward Arrows, Listening Mirror with Alicia Merz, Clem Leek, Anna Rose Carter with Christopher Bailey and Daniel Thomas Freeman. The album has been mastered by Wil Bolton and features artwork from Lucia Mancilla Prieto.

• Festive Greetings from Hibernate & Home Normal (2011) - 320 Kbps

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