It's Not Like Christmas

With Phil Spector somewhat pre-occupied, your friends at Izumi Records have only gone and updated the Christmas Album for the modern music lover. The idea was naturally hatched at a BBQ at the height of summer and a few short months later 'It's Not Like Christmas’ has arrived!

All the profits from album sales will go directly to support the work of the charity Shelter (www.shelter.org.uk) in preventing the damage that bad housing causes and trying to ensure that as many people as possible have suitable, decent and affordable homes.

Featuring exclusive tracks from 17 artists including Duke Special, Duels, David Ford, The Joseph & Mary Envelopes, El Perro Del Mar and Amusement Parks On Fire the album is a combination of original material and a few tasty re-workings of some Christmas classics.



For the cover lovers 747s skillfully negotiate the Elvis' ‘Blue Christmas,’ The Late Greats doff a silk lined hammer to Phil Spector’s ‘Sleigh Ride’ and Duels deploy the epic button and let loose storming ‘Do You Hear What I Hear?’

Curled up in a cosy ball in front of the fire you can also find some a few sneaky collaborations with the princess of most things brilliant Emmy The Great sharing vocal duties on 'Christmas in Prison' with Dev Test Icicle and Duke Spirits' Leila Moss fairy crop dusting Amusement Parks On Fires' 'The Day It Snowed.'



Duke Special and David Ford got together and wrote the beautiful 'Of Whoredon & Falconry' especially for the project. A ballad for Christmas Eve sent across the Irish Sea from Lewes To Belfast.

Elsewhere The Futureheads, Field Music, The Golden Virgins and the always skill Kathryn Williams join forces to form The Joseph & Mary Chain who's version of 'The Twelve Days Of Christmas' is the brandy butter on the pud.

Like any family Christmas 'It's Not Like Christmas' is an eclectic mix of drunken uncles and hyper kids. Most of all though it's a record that is full of surprises, heart and just the right sprinkling of fun.

It's Not Like Christmas
Old chestnuts get roasted like never been before as Amazing Pilots wade into White Christmas. The gulping sound in the background must be Bing Crosby choking on his pipe. Matt Harding's Purple Snowflakes takes the edge off the cold snap, while David Ford's 'Have Yourself A Bittter Little Christmas' takes frank Sinatra at his own word. All proceeds go to Shelter
★★★★ (Four Stars)
Gavin Martin
Daily Mirror

It's Not Like Christmas
That rare thing, a great Christmas record, this album lets its contributors make merry with cover versions and original songs. The 12 Days of Christmas, performed by a supergroup including Kathryn Williams, Futureheads and Field Music, captures precisely why the project works. At once informed by a warm fidelity and a spirit of anarchy, the track hurtles thrillingly towards its denouement. Other highlights include Duels.. sinister reading of Do You Hear What I Hear? and El Perro del Mar's overwrought Oh! What a Christmas. Minuteman's cover of Wham!'s Last Christmas flirts with feyness before luring the song into a very dark place indeed. Best of all is Of Whoredom and Falconry, by Duke Special and David Ford, which sends a chill up the spine, as all great Christmas songs should. It..s available on iTunes from Wednesday and in stores on December 13; all royalties go to Shelter.

Four stars

The Sunday Times

El Perro Del Mar
“Oh! What a Christmas”

Back in my heavy Santa Claus phase, the yuletide carols blasting from my mom's Wagoneer wanted to be symphonies. Julie Andrews saw three ships, and her voice would ascend, angelic, from sprawling Hollywood-via-Lawrence-Welk fanfares. I love the idea that someday the songs my kids grow up hearing will opt for being Phil Spector teenage symphonies instead. Like Tralala's "Christmas Never Comes When You're Alone" last year, El Perro Del Mar's new spirit-brightener opens with the "Be My Baby" beat, then bursts into jingle bells and girl choirs. "Oh, how long it was/ Haven't had a kiss since Christmas," Swedish singer-songwriter Sarah Assbring sings, with her usual melancholy. A shit ton of choruses, a simple horn riff building to a ba-ba-ba coda, and there's not much else to it. "Oh! What a Christmas" certainly won't displace Dame Julie in my heart, but it brings some of the requisite warm fuzzies.

Pitchfork