Since the soft release of their stunning debut album, We’re All In This Together, in 2009, on her own Gift of the Gab label, Gabby Young and Other Animals have taken off in a big way. The eight-piece have spent 2010 touring, playing lots of festivals, including Glastonbury, as well as scores of smaller shows around the UK and Europe. Gabby is a great show-woman, which, coupled with an amazing voice, is a winning combination.   After building up a loyal fanbase of music lovers and those of sartorial discernment alike, the album has recently been given a re-release and 2011 is sure to be hers for the taking.   In this special Christmas podcast, which was first broadcast on 16 December 2010, we learn that Gabby really loves Christmas. And I mean really *really* loves Christmas. She chooses three of her favourite Christmas songs and tells us about her amazing year.

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www.gabbyyoungandotheranimals.com

Adrian’s Twitter: @adriandcr

The first of my ‘Words into Wires’ Xmas specials has three tracks that come together after being recorded twenty years apart from each other.
We start off with Procol Harum in 1967, then on to Run DMC in 1987 and finishing up with the Magnetic Fields right here in 2010.
They don’t especially make you feel all festive inside but are well on the way to getting you there and far away from bloody Slade too !

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1. Procol Harum – A Christmas Camel
2. Run DMC – Christmas In Hollis
3. The Magnetic Fields – Everything Is One Big Christmas Tree

12th December 2010

Saturday took me to the marvelous theatre that is The Union Chapel, Islington. I’d been keen to visit this venue after hearing how special it was and it is indeed a treat, it’s great to see a church being used for something and not just gathering dust, we’ve a wealth of these spaces in London and frankly most of them are wasting space, once built  for occasions of joy and hoards of people but as religion went out of fashion so did it’s home, fortuanetly The Union Chapel have decided to use this awesome octagonal space for what it’s designed for, being filled with noise.  The band responsible on Saturday were Bleeding Heart Narrative. We’re already fans of BHN here at DCR but Saturday reminded us why, with a backbone of 7 musicians, mostly strings, they’re perfect. They fill the space with waves of cello, violin and electric strings backed up by layers of vocals from the whole band, the latter half of the performance saw the band joined by an additional four string players which only added to the atmosphere. Highlights were new single ‘Perun’ and the room filler ‘David Foster Wallace’. You can listen here.

Union Chapel do lots of free gigs as well as gigs you get your wallet out for, they also run regular church services and act as a homeless centre. You can check them out here.

For the first of my 13 Days of Christmas
podcasts I’m taking a look at the flipside to some of the UK’s
Christmas number one singles. Even though the songs that were number
one sold in their millions and are now seen as classics some of their
b-sides were still quite unusual. This show features three of the most
interesting b-sides, including synthpop from the Human League about the
assassination of JFK, ambient prog from Pink Floyd and The Beatles’
surrealist pop.

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This first of two shows from Liam & Gemma  features Gemma’s choice of festive music. She opens up with a beautiful track from Sufjan Stevens which ticks all the yuletide boxes in terms of title, lyrics and content and that’s followed by a classic from The Walkmen’s album Bows and Arrows, the show closes with the on trend ‘Allo Darlin’. We hope you enjoy the show. Their other show is on the 20th and features Liam’s music, it promises to be a little more leftfield in terms of Christmas connections.

photo: Rebecca Miller

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Alessi Laurent-Marke records under the name Alessi’s Ark. Since her first release, the Bedroom Bound EP, in 2007, she has released a well-received album, Notes From the Treehouse, on EMI, and, in 2010, following a move to Bella Union, the home of Fleet Foxes, John Grant and Midlake, she released the Soul Proprietor EP.   Her latest album, Time Travel, is released by Bella Union on 25 April 2011. She has toured with the likes of Laura Marling, Villagers and Sons of Noel and Adrian.

In this special podcast for Different Class Radio, which was first broadcast on 12 December 2010, Alessi tells Adrian Arratoon about Christmas when she was growing up, appearing in radical nativity plays, her highlights of 2010 and chooses three of her favourite festive tracks.   www.alessisark.com

www.bellaunion.com

Adrian Arratoon Twitter: @adriandcr