Thursday, December 23, 2010

The Gift




Verble says, "This one has it all, truly. It's my second - well, third - favourite Christmas album, and one of my favourite acoustic albums, and it even has a cover that deserves framing. It's just magical!




"The Christmas carols played here, I mean, they sound so much like the standards, but then, they also don't sound like 'just Christmas tunes' if you know what I mean. This is just an album you can play all year long. The acoustic guitar and the woodwind, they blend perfectly together, they balance and counter each other gracefully, you even just forget that they're playing instruments at all - this album just becomes part of your background, part of your own natural rhythm. I don't know how to explain it other than that.




"Sometimes I think that this was the way these carols were originally played - by people, in a room somewhere, small house, quietly backing up to the moors. Foggy night before Christmas. The entire village packed into one guy's house. The dancing music has faded and all that's left now near midnight is the hush now, the guitar and woodwind lulling low, getting the people ready to hike their coat against the wind and head out into the fog to the church for Midnight Mass.




"Ah! It's almost like I'm remembering those days, from over four hundred years ago! That's what this album does to me - takes me back to a place I've never been and makes it a part of the fabric of my own tapestry.




"Like I said before - they don't make 'em any better than this!"




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