Huge day to come and awoke before dawn high on rich, vivid dreams and raw excitement, so decided to give my universe deck a shuffle and drew Rose Solstice Breath.
Midwinter In The Mix
That was ripe as now’s the time to commence creation of my annual return-of-the-light midwinter’s day mix: a melodic sonic eucharist amalgam of seasonal song, poetry & culture to commemorate and celebrate the holiest day of the year: Winter Solstice—and in turn the orbit past and one to come.
All began facing a long ride to a girlfriend’s family’s house for Christmas Eve dinner. To cushion reality, had a whim to leverage a Christmas Promo I’d received from Rhino Records and comb through the slim Christmas pickings in the rest of my collection to assemble a little inner stocking stuffer to assuage the road dread.
The highly wide-ranging result was surprisingly effective, good and revealing of the rich cubism that Christmas has become in the Late Capitalist Psychotechnical Planeticide Era.
Now, for 18 years have endeavored to represent as many times, places and styles as possible in each mix while never repeating a track down the epochs. Also, include an apropos holiday, wintry or otherwise right selection for any recording artist or chosen cultural figure who has alas died in the prior thirteen moons.
If you think any of this is easy, you’d be wrong. Takes easily at least sixty hours of painstaking work—sequencing, engineering, mastering, graphics, file tagging and processing, etc.—not including holding nose and mouth whilst slogging through dangerously choppy, foul rising rivers of absolutely ghastly Christmas music trying to emerge alive with the rare gem that will fit the mission.
We Honor & Remember
As time goes on of course, all the really choice tracks are deployed, which makes for a triple difficult task. Then you could have a year like this, where around twenty artists of note have passed, forcing much the repertoire. In older days, you might have a handful—a dreadful year might be nine or eleven—but this year was truly severe including once again some dear colleagues.
This year’s there’s also the major challenge to assemble a program that will be uplifting and soulful while respecting how many amigos will be in mourning, separated from their loved ones, or otherwise far afield from the traditions they hold sacred—so the key whimsical, irreverent and risqué segments don’t feel right.
As a result, this will likely be the first ever double disc edition—though of course long by now distribution is digital. Would far rather stick to the eighty minute limitation of one compact disc—a tradition carried into the digital domain—but with everyone more or less constricted to home or auto anyway, for many reasons this turn to the light seems an exception to prove the rule.
Cool Yule
Love this time of year: so many fine and bright holiday season traditions, the fascinating esoteric history of Santa Claus, pagan yuletide lore, the extraordinary natural change force of the solstice, and of course the non-secular tales of the Prince Of Peace and the greatest story ever told.
There’s a vast kingdom of underrepresented songs of the season by legendary, underground, as well as new artists. We get the same couple three dozen jammed down our minds each year on the idiot box and wherever else but for the dedicated crate digger, truly is special just what you can unearth.
Everyone should have creative traditions that honor the gift of light and life at year’s end—offer comfort, joy & inspiration to themselves, their friends and their communities.
Scrooges are such a bore. You miss the mojo at your own mortality. Rose solstice breath is what we breathe out here at CentComm.
Hark how the bells
Sweet silver bells
All seem to say
Throw cares away
Christmas is here
Bringing good cheer
To young and old
Meek and the boldDing dong ding dong
That is their song
With joyful ring
All caroling
❏