Once an artist uses our platform to connect with an audience, we grandfather them into the NoiseTrade community for life and keep our antennae tuned to let you know about whatever future projects they’re working on. This week’s heads up: Musicians Corner brought together a slew of Nashville artists and producers (including NT favorites Matthew Perryman Jones, Angel Snow, Lera Lynn, and more) for their brand new holiday compilation Season’s Greetings From Nashville.
We’ve always been big fans of Musicians Corner, Nashville’s incredible free outdoor music series that offers multiple performances every year from local artists and legends alike, and this year they’ve leveled up their city-supporting awesomeness by offering a brand new holiday compilation called Season’s Greetings from Nashville. This 11-track album features a tasteful mix of newly recorded Christmas classics and holiday originals from some of Nashville’s most talented artists and producers, over half of which have partnered with NoiseTrade in multiple ways over the years.
From the frosty piano dirge of Lera Lynn’s welcomed reinterpretation of “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” that opens the album, it’s made crystal clear that Season’s Greetings from Nashville isn’t some bland, run-of-the-mill retread of wintersong walkthroughs. As Lynn told American Songwriter last month, “I’ve always wanted to record ‘I’ll Be Home for Christmas,’ but I always pictured it warm and fuzzy like we’ve all heard it so many times… I knew we’d come up with something slightly twisted. It’s more like cold and fuzzy, which is festive, too, I suppose.” That spirit of reimagining what the “festive” nature of holiday songs entail can also be felt in the melancholy strum of Molly Parden’s “In Tennessee Time,” the cavernous electric guitar wash of Tristen’s “O Holy Night,” and the indie-rock rumble-buzz of “Christmas Clown” from Sun Seeker.
There’s much to love about the tracks that strike a more conventional tone as well. Kyshona’s electric piano groove of “Maybe By Christmas” is a soulful, finger-snapping standout, it seems impossible not to get uplifted a bit by the singalong romp of “Jingle Bells” from The Sweetheart Deal (Paul McDonald and Emily Kinney), and the mid-album trio of well-known holiday hymns from Becca Mancari, Amber Rubarth, and The Daybreaks bring a calming familiarity to the whole project that can always be called upon during the more chaotic moments of the season.
For my two cents, the closing 1-2 punch of Season’s Greetings from Nashville is worth the price of admission alone. Matthew Perryman Jones combines the beautifully relaxed depth of his voice with an “other room” drum groove to bring an incredibly chill vibe to “Auld Lang Syne” and Angel Snow’s “Silent Night” has such a starkly stripped-down vocal purity that you’ll swear you’ve been transported to a snowy cathedral before the instrumentation can even join in. Both Jones and Snow contributed mightily to our music/video album Eastside Manor Christmas Sessions back in 2013, so it’s incredibly cool to hear them doing more holiday songs as only they can on Season’s Greetings from Nashville.
Season’s Greetings from Nashville is currently available by stream or download across all digital platforms and there’s also a limited edition CD available at select Nashville retailers and the Musicians Corner webstore.
Season’s Greetings from Nashville full tracklist:
1. Lera Lynn – I’ll Be Home For Christmas
2. Sun Seeker – Christmas Clown
3. The Sweetheart Deal – Jingle Bells
4. Tristen – O Holy Night
5. Kyshona – Maybe By Christmas
6. Molly Parden – In Tennessee Time
7. Becca Mancari – Joy To The World
8. Amber Rubarth – It Came Upon The Midnight Clear
9. The Daybreaks – I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day
10. Matthew Perryman Jones – Auld Lang Syne
11. Angel Snow – Silent Night
