Monkton: Jingle Bells, Rudolph smells, Jesus all the way
It’s gone all quiet on the Monkton front of late, so I best pop my head round the door and ho ho hopelessly apologize for my seasonal absence. And how’s about this for a start!?
Forgive me such a personal question, but can anyone else feel their cockles warming? This track has got me so giddy about the Sigur Ros frontman’s upcoming album that between that, getting the green light on Christmas jumpers and the festive onslaught of mulled wine parties I am certain to explode with pant-wetting excitement before I even so much as sniff a brusselsprout. And now that’s saying something - gunning for poll position on my stereo in the month of December is largely pointless (unless your name is Nat King Cole that is) but somehow I can’t resist putting this number on loop-de-loop… Tuuuune!
And what else did Good King Wenceslas see when he looked out on the Feast of Stephen? Sack that, what did he hear? Well if he’s anything like me, he’d swoon at the feet of Laura Marling’s wistful paean to the wintry homeshores of old England -
MP3: ‘Goodbye England (Covered in Snow)’ [Live Version] - Laura Marling
Tuuuuune! [2]. The fully-fledged all fingers and toes single version hits the shelves on Monday 14th - so stockings at the ready.
And in other news, our lad Johnny Flynn has emerged from hibernation to toast us with a new EP -
MP3: ‘Sweet William’ - Johnny Flynn
More of the same astounding folkery that made Flynn’s debut A Larum such a joy, this time with an airier bent that builds in strides and marches - like the record is a living and breathing thing, where the last was more a verbatim testament of Flynn and his band of merry men, the Sussex Wit. Tuuuuuune(s)! [3] Between Marling and Flynn, you could say we’ve got the full English - and so with that homely sentiment I feel well and truly ready to start jingling my bells and mulling my Kintyres. If I may be so crude.
God bless us all -
Monkton x
