Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas

Long-standing Wales Arts Review contributor Kevin McGrath is back this Christmas with a brand-new fundraising album, raising money for homeless charity, Crisis.

Following on from his previous efforts fundraising for Velindre cancer centre with his V4Velindre compliation album, Kevin McGrath is back with a new album which offers the perfect antidote to those saccharine Christmas music collections. Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas features a diverse set of musicians (106 tracks, in two volumes), which includes The Lilac Time, Sally Shapiro, Eddi Reader, The Popguns, St Lenox, Dodgy, Pete Astor, Shinyribs, Lowri Evans, bis, Helen Love, The Pearlfishers, Suzzy Roche, Boo Hewerdine, The Pocket Gods, BOB, White Town and The Long Winters.

You’re getting plenty for your money with the two packed volumes each loaded with alternatives to the usual Christmas songs. As usual with anything McGrath compiles, the sound quality is great and there is plenty to enjoy, whether you’re planning to kick back and make the most of a much-needed break this Christmas, or whether the next week will be a blur of wrapping and cooking dinner for 25 people.

Talking about compiling the album, McGrath speaks of how he “set out in February to compile the best ever ‘Indie’ Christmas album, and I believe I have actually accomplished that with something to spare!” He may well be onto something; as the release gathers momentum, some of the UK’s leading music critics have championed the album, with the Guardian’s John Harris labelling it a “brilliant compilation” and December coverage lined up on BBC6 Music, as well as with Bethan Elfyn and Adam Walton on BBC Radio Wales.

A number of videos are available to accompany the tracks featured in the collection, including The Romantidote’s ‘(Have Yourself) A Very Maudlin Christmas’ and The Disappointment Choir’s ‘A Pretty Good Christmas’. If downloads aren’t your thing, the last remaining copies of Selected Songs from Have Yourself a Merry Indie Christmas, a 16-track CD funded by the South African Subjangle Sounds label, are (at the time of writing) available from Spillers Records.