Pre-order Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club Edition 2024

The Snowflakes blog is now officially openened for the Christmas Season 2024! And we start with some news about the Snowflakes Christmas Singls Club!

Last year was the first time since the start of the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club in 2013 that there was no new edition.

The good news is that this year, with a delay of one year, the 11th edition of the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club will finally arrive!

To make up for a year without new Snowflakes singles, this year's edition will have 4 new singles! That's the first time since the fourth edition, which came out in 2016.

I am very happy how the singles by Simon Chesterfield (Yeoville, England, best known as founding member of the still active 1980s indie pop band The Chesterfields), Les Pommes De Lune (freakbeat from Montréal, Quebec, Canada), Whatitdo Archive Group (jazzfunk/library music from Reno, Nevada, USA) and the Holiday Crowd (indie rock from Toronto, Ontario, Canada) turned out.
You can find more information about the singles below.

The singles come, as always, packed in a festive looking full colour sleeve on snow white vinyl, limited to 300 copies. For the first time, the singles are pressed on bio-vinyl. Exactly the same quality as regular vinyl, but with the petroleum in the PVC replaced by recycled used cooking oil. Which means 90% CO2 reduction.

The singles can be pre-ordered on the Snowflakes Big Cartel page (also as a cheaper package deal - it saves you 4 euro!).

Here is where you can order the singles: Snowflakes Big Cartel.

Package deal including all four new singles: The Complete Set.

Single copies of the 2024 singles: Single Copies.

SIMON CHESTERFIELD: Last Train To Christmas / I Believe In Father Christmas
(Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club, Snowflake 32)

Simon Chesterfield is a new project launched by Simon Barber, co-founder and ever-present member of Yeovil-based indie pop band The Chesterfields. In October, Simon Chesterfield's debut album was released on German label Legere Recordings, a 10" featuring six of Simon's compositions reimagined as an orchestral performance. The single Simon Chesterfield recorded for Snowflakes Christmas Single Club ends up somewhere between the orchestral sound of the 10" and the jangle pop of The Chesterfields. Simon delved deep into the past of The Chesterfields, inspired by a dream he had years ago of his band having a Christmas hit. Now he has turned 'Last Train To Yeovil', a track from the 1988 Chesterfields EP 'Goodbye Goodbye', into the Christmas hit it always secretly was. The true nature of the song is revealed by changing just one word of the lyrics and by the musical makeover that the seven musicians involved in recording the single (including his Chesterfields bandmate Helen Stickland and her daughter Tabitha) gave the song.

For the B-side, the group recorded a cover of one of the absolute classics of British Christmas rock, Greg Lake's 1975 UK #2 hit 'I Believe In Father Christmas'. Simon Chesterfield’s version of the song sounds atmospheric, yet fresh and bright. The cover art is another throwback to the early years of The Chesterfields, as it is a redesigned version of the sleeve of The Chesterfield's second 7", 'Completely & Utterly'. Like the original sleeve, it was designed by The Terrible Hildas, who were responsible for many sleeve designs for the legendary 1980s indie label The Subway Organization. The single is pressed on snow-white bio-vinyl and limited to 300 copies.


LES POMMES DE LUNE: La Révolution Des Lutins / Le Plus Fort
(Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club, Snowflake 33)

Les Pommes De Lune debuted in 2022 on the Los Angeles psych-pop label Hypnotic Bridge with the 7" 'Première Transmission'. The single included a cover of 'Une Fleur', originally recorded by French actress and singer Christine Delaroche, and Status Quo's 'Pictures Of Matchstick Men' - in French. Although the band was new, the members of Les Pommes De Lune had a long history in the Canadian garage and psychedelic rock scene, having played in bands such as Thee Gnostics, The Double Feature Creatures, The Saffron Sect, Les Séquelles, Les Incapables and Le Chelsea Beat. Musically inspired by the British Freakbeat scene of the late 1960s and the French Yéyé sound of the mid-1960s, Les Pommes De Lune have developed their own take on psychedelic rock. The band’s single for the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club will feature the first Les Pommes De Lune original - although the song sounds like a long-lost gem from 1967. On the B-side we find another cover, of an obscure song by Pussy Cat (French singer Évelyne Courtois).

The original 'La Révolution Des Lutins' ('The Elves' Revolution') and the cover 'Le Plus Fort' ('The Strongest') both deal with the same subject: the revolution of the elves! Inspired by the White Panther's 10-point plan, the elves demand total liberation, toys every day, eggnog and Yule log NOW! Les Pommes De Lune support the elves' valiant struggle with quivering guitars, psychedelic music and rhythms. Packaged in a sleeve with great artwork by Marie-Pierre Morin and the Elfs Manifesto on the back, the single is pressed on snow-white bio-vinyl and limited to 300 copies.


WHATITDO ARCHIVE GROUP: Wild Man / Greensleeves
(Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club, Snowflake 34)

After navigating the labyrinthine musical chambers of their 2023 modern exotica album 'Palace Of A Thousand Sounds', Reno. Nevada’s Whatitdo Archive Group has returned with their first-ever holiday offering—venturing into the darker side of Christmas folklore with their new ice-cold 45, 'Wild Man'. Drawing inspiration from a global archetypical myth of the same name, Whatitdo Archive Group examines the ancient story of the Wild Man—the hairy, half-human, half-beast that stalks the shadows of humanity’s shared primeval past. The myth of the Wild Man is a folktale that goes by many names: The Yeti of the Himalayas, the Bigfoot of North America, and, of course, Krampus of Eastern Europe—a yuletide beast with a reputation as a child-devouring "Anti-Claus" who now finds himself the subject of Whatitdo’s latest musical exploration.

‘Wild Man’ gives us a glimpse into the band’s newest sonic direction. With a heavy rhythm section carried by Alexander Korostinsky’s driving bass line, the sticky wah-guitar of Mark Sexton’s L-5, and the acrobatic lines of the Wurlitzer electric piano, “Wild Man” revels in the spiritual jazz flavors of Pharoah Sanders and grooves hard like the classic soul-jazz stylings of Ramsey Lewis. Much like the Krampus myth itself, 'Wild Man' is meant to weave an ominous spell over any Christmas cocktail party long after the kids have gone to bed. Hear the warning for yourself in the song’s haunting chant: "You better watch out for your life, when the Wild Man comes in the night".

But mythology isn’t abandoned on the B-side. The band takes the traditional English folk melody 'Greensleeves' and reimagines it through the musical lens of Ethio-jazz. Recorded live at the Archive Group Studios, the track exudes a dark, roomy atmosphere, drenched in unease and mystery courtesy of the wandering electric piano dancing above the hypnotic rhythm section and mesmeric groove of the distant Batá drums. This fresh reimagining taps into the ancient, cross-cultural lineage of the "Green Man" myth, a pagan symbol of rebirth and the power of the natural world, further blurring the lines between holiday cheer and the primal, elemental forces enshrined in our collective cultural memory.

After the band’s 'Palace Of A Thousand Sounds' was named 2023’s "Best Library Record" by PopMatters Magazine, their new 'Wild Man' 7” capitalizes on the same creative process that shaped their last record, while now exploring new conceptual territory. By drawing inspiration from archaic global folklore and again utilizing their peculiar recording techniques, W.A.G. has crafted a truly unique holiday offering that unearths the darker, more primal undercurrents of the Christmas tradition. The 'Wild Man' 7" is released as part of the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club, pressed on snow-white bio-vinyl and limited to 300 copies.


HOLIDAY CROWD: Winterland / Hard Candy Christmas
(Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club, Snowflake 35)

Canadian band the Holiday Crowd as part of the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club, it was a match too good to not be made. The Toronto, Ontario-based indie rockers formed in 2010 and released a mini-album, a full-length and a 7" between 2012 and 2016. In 2022, the group returned with a new single, 'Party Favours', like their other records released by Portland, Oregon label Shelflife Records. Despite being Canadian, the band's sound is heavily influenced by British indie rock of the 1980s and early 1990s. For their Snowflakes Christmas single, the original four members of the band, lead vocalist Imran Hanniff, guitarist Colin Bowers, British-born bassist Alex Roberts and drummer David George Barnes, reunited to write the original 'Winterland'.

Winterland' takes you right back to the 1980s with its jangly guitar, rolling bass, pounding drums and Imran's warm vocals. The song seems to look back on childhood memories, but the parts about the heart that turned to coal, the last-minute shoppers and the 'graveyard malls' show that there is a deeper meaning to the lyrics. The single's B-side 'Hard Candy Christmas' was written by Carol Hall for the 1978 musical 'The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas'. The song became a hit for Dolly Parton in 1982 when it was featured in the movie version of the musical in which she starred. The Holiday Crowd's reworking of the song perfectly captures the melancholy of the original, with its message of focusing on the sweet things in life, even when times are hard. The single is released on snow-white bio-vinyl in a sleeve with a playful design by Kenichi Ueda and limited to 300 copies.