TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

Has anybody tried to get hold of a copy of this yet and if so, have you succeeded?

I keep getting emails from Amazon saying that the release date has been delayed and they have now pushed it back to the middle of December which is getting a bit tight for a Chr1stmas album.

According to the Talkinf Elephant website it is already available but I don't really want to pay their prices. There is no real excuse for charging £13.99 for a CD in this day and age.

Who is it by?

Isn´t that the title of this years CD from The Albion Christmas Band?

Sure is:-
http://www.play.com/Music/CD/-/10/34/-/7785714/Snow-On-Snow/Product.html?searchtype=genre

I was about to say the release date is on most sites is listed as the 24th November.But HMV.com have it as available now for £10.99 http://tinyurl.com/5auwwu

The date is now shown as 24 November on Amazon but their email indicates differently. The release date on Talking Elephant is shown as 10 November and the home page says that it is already available.

sorry just updated my message- HMV have it as there now! see above

Great title!  (I take it's a play on Blonde On Blonde.)

Jules

More likely a direct quote from "In the Bleak Mid-Winter", if my memory serves me written by Christina Rosetti (DG's sister).

DC

Just looked it up - words by CR, music by Gustav Holst, but not actually published as a carol until after CR's death.

DC

Well, Ashley being a Dylan nut, it'll be a combinatio nof the two, I shouldn't wonder.

Jules

I doubt it's an allusion to Dylan.

I presume Bleak Mid Winter is on the album? If so, that's it then.

Bloomin' awful carol it is, an' all. Almost as bad as Away in a Manger. Bleargh. There are two tunes to it, so one of them might have been extant in Christina Rossetti's lifestyle .

(I'll run away and hide from the flak now.. heeheheh)

So, you've never heard St Agnes Fountain do them then, Smith?

Nooooo! and I'll avoid them now. I've just realised I've put "Rossetti's lifestyle" as opposed to "lifetime"  - and I've no idea whether Christina had an interesting lifestyle, though I think Dante Gabriel might've done. Maybe she wouldn't have written such drippy poetry if she'd done anything interesting, Or maybe she did. Any ideas, anyone?    

Without even listening ???  I'm no great fan of carols, but they're bloody good at what they do and deserve a listen, as do The Albions.

I LOVE carols! Just not those ones.  

I love "In the Bleak Midwinter". I confess it brings tears to my eyes, but I think it is absolutely beautiful. Chris While does a fabulous job of singing it with the Aggies too.

Oh Smith Oh Smith Oh Smith. Put aside your prejudice and go to see the Aggies - they give you carols like you've never heard before plus loads of other lovely stuff. And for an acoustic band they make one hell of a noise (in a good way!).

They are a wonderful band at any time of year.

As are the Albions, though sadly they are not playing round my way this year but I'm really looking forward to the album. I also really like In The Bleak Midwinter. Both tunes.

There are various settings available. The Holst is certainly not my favourite. I rather like the one by Harold Darke.

Paul

definately your loss that then

( a non carol lover )

I´m with you there, GF. It´s a December favourite in these parts. The Aggies version is sooooo wonderful!

Have you read her Goblin Market? Full of sexual imagery.

 So there's 'Snow on snow' and these two:

   Winter songs  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Winter-Songs-Albion-Christmas-Band/dp/B000JKA376/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1227344770&sr=8-2
   An Albion Christmas
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Albion-Christmas-Band/dp/B0000DDBSC/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1227344770&sr=8-4

  Anyone got any thoughts/preferences/recommendations, please? I'm keen to give one of them a try...... [;-)

p.s. I love 'In the bleak midwinter' too, the nature imagery is so powerfully vivid  :)

Buy both - that's my recommendation {:-)

See both of these wonderful Xmas bands too.. my recommendation!!

 Just a  few tix left for the Aggies gig in Notts though...  ;D ;D ;D

Fair enough! I will if I can.  I'll just have to not listen to these two numbers - "Bleak Midwinter" actually won a poll last year on the best Xmas carol, so I'm outvoted, anyway. I think, for me, it's like the song or album you really don't like out of the oeuvre of an artist you really like. It's much more annoying than if it was in among lots of other stuff I was indifferent to.

The mediaeval carols which have lasted are amazing, as survivors tend to be.

I love it too. I think it's the two chords on 'winter' that gets me. Just wonderful.

They are genuinely both great and I'm betting the new one will be too. An Albion Christmas was the current album when I first saw them live so was the first one I bought. It is as good a place to start as any.

BTW, despite the strange emails they have been sending me this week, Amazon today confirmed that they have now dispatched Snow On Snow to me.

All this lovely chat but I've got a bit confused. I too love ITBM, both tunes. Would somebody please list the CDs recordings available you are all referring on which it appears - so I can rush out and buy (and hopefully give the artists some royalties in time for Christmas!!).
Cheers
Joss

   1. Seven Joys Of Mary
   2. The Month Of January
   3. Winter
   4. I Love This Time Of Year The Best
   5. Much Wenlock
   6. Border Morris Medley
   7. Comfort And Joy
   8. The Thames Frozen Over
   9. Humours Upon The Ice
  10. Adderbury Wassail
  11. Sleet
  12. Frozen Man
  13. Cherry Tree Carol
  14. In The Bleak Mid-Winter
  15. The Shepherd's Carol
  16. It Came Upon A Midnight Clear
  17. Hark The Herald Angels Sing
  18. Well, So That Is That
  19. The January Man

Here it is.

Brian

Well that's enough variety for me, next stop Amazon...  ;)
I adore CW's version of BM, perhaps Kellie will pull something extraordinary out of her bag...
PS I believe both Rosettis were pretty interesting.

Thanks Brian - looks good!
cheers
Joss

Frozen Man - a great song but so sad :'(  I always feel like I want to give him a hug.

Really? - I'll have to look into it, I like accounts of rackety Victorian lives.

Resolute with regard to the song, mind. It has something to do with being made to sing it round Wigton nursing homes with the other children when I was at school.  

Found the CD on my mat when I got home tonight (I've been working in Cornwall for a few days). I will hold off on playing it until after 1 December but I noticed 2 S Nicol co-writes on the album. Does that not double Simon's songwriting credits in a single stroke?

Smith, try "Four Rossettis , a Victorian Biography" by Stanley Weintraub.

Just out of interest........ ;D

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/7752029.stm

Really? Incredible!

I seem to contradict both the popular vote and the experts. My only consolation is that I can think of myself as a rebel (but there really isn't much of a cachet in being a rebel in the Christmas-carol-appreciation-world. Not very rock 'n' roll.)  

In dulci jubilo's streets ahead, mind...

If you read it though, it is the Harold Darke version, not the Holst version that everybody knows.

Paul

In Dulci Jubilo! Now you're talking. My favourite.

You don't look like a rebel to me, Smith.

Oh b****r, scrap my post then... :P >:(

Not at all! They're reasonably similar tunes. They've got fairly similar rhythm, written to fit the words naturally, and they both rise to a long note on "bleak" and have a bit of a pause at the end of each line. Nice and easy to sing, anyway.. The difference is that in the Holst the climax of the tune is on the last "snow" while in the Darke it's on the second "midwinter". Paul'll have some music, won't you?  

Anyway, i liked the rest of the list.. I went through it muttering "yey!" or "bleargh" as the mood took me. Funny how sometimes you can almost disagree with yourself..        

Nah, I'm bolshie. The difference being that rebels rebel against something meaningful, whereas your true bolshie starts off with arguments about the eating of sprouts and moves on, in time, to endless squabbles with the lady who runs the flexi-system at work!

Perhaps you need to learn to be more flexible!  ;D

Flexibility! That's what boils my sprouts. Flexi-systems, eh? ******g fantastic.

always steam a sprout :P