So this is Christmas, and I hope you have a very merry one indeed

If you’re in need of a soundtrack to the festivities or for your iPod while you trek through the snow/sludge to pick up that last-minute gift, the Christmas Clanger is here (slightly later than originally planned) with the first ever I Hear a New World Ten Tracks bundle!

In case you don’t know, Ten Tracks is a Scottish-based music download service where music fans can get ten tasty audio treats for the extraordinarily cheap price of a pound, whilst making sure the musicians involved get something back.

That’s right, for the price of a box of Maltesers (admittedly also an excellent purchase), you get to download ten of the best tracks which have featured on previous I Hear a New World podcasts, a number of which aren’t available anywhere else. See below for what I wrote about them in my column for The Skinny Magazine. 

Above: IHANW ten tracks bundle

Wounded Knee – Anthem for the Call-Centre Worker

Edinburgh’s Wounded Knee takes the corporate-speak of the robot voices that greet us on the other end of the line and reclaims them as a call to arms for all downtrodden customer service representatives. Using his sublime skills with repeating vocal loops, he transforms a common depression into a perversely uplifting anthem.

Employee of the Month – Brainwave – Corrupt

Call it jazz or post-rock if you like, and it’s true that Employee of the Month bear comparison to the likes of Boards of Canada and Tortoise, but their hyper-modern aesthetic is all their own.

Withered Hand – Religious Songs (early EP version)

“Not many religious songs contain the line “I beat myself off when I sleep on your futon” but the title track from Withered Hand’s new EP combines themes of faith, doubt, sex and inexplicably uncomfortable furniture without blinking an eye.

Kazoo Funk Orchestra – Robots in Your Eyes

All songs about robots are brilliant – FACT. This 1:12 minutes of mechanical mayhem is even better than that one from the Flight of the Conchords and will probably single-handedly hasten the onset of the singularity, when machine intelligence finally overtakes our own (if that hasn’t happened already).

Les Enfant Bastard – Michael Jackson

Lo-fi genius Les Enfant Bastard is trying to convince us that although he appears to be a skinny white bloke, he is in fact the facially-challenged post-black moonwalking nutjob who refers to himself as the King of Pop.

 Ambulances – Raasay

 Get your tie-die dress on and skip bare-foot down to the river, light up a giant spliff (if you like that sort of thing – or a nice cup of camomile tea if you don’t). Raasaay is a laid-back love-in that will make dreamers out of over-achievers.

Gummi Bako – I’m Depressed

Here, Gummi seems to have the bakery-related blues (“too much hot-cross loving”), but then things take an abrupt turn for the positive and you realise he has the ability to free himself from adversity through sheer, glorious absurdity.

Men Diamler – Black as a Cat in the Morning

Men Diamler is pure mental, he sings about cats and suicide and screams “one of these days you’ll feel much better”. He gets up and runs about like his arse is on fire. He makes us all sing along. Thing is, we feel better right away.

Meursault – William Henry Miller Part 1 (acoustic version from the Nothing Broke EP)

Meursault are perhaps better known for their blistering electronica-based live sets but here they excel in the acoustic realm with impassioned vocals, banjo, handclaps and harmonies.

White Heath – When the Watchmen Leave Their Stations

You know you’re in for a treat right away when a big feckin’ tuba kicks in, but just wait for the chorus when it all comes together in a swinging, serenading New Orleans-march-through-the-streets-then-onto-a-boat-down-the Mississippi-river of lovestruck majesty.

 Grab these ten musical gems for the barely noticeable price of one single quid courtesy of www.tentracks.co.uk 

Related post:

I Hear a New Gramophone - an interview with Sean Michaels

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