Download Ho! Ho! Ho! Canada XIV: Oh! Canada's alternative seasonal soundtrack

This year we are delighted to feature brand new tracks from Evan J Cartwright and Michael C. Duguay, and we’ve chosen seasonal adjacent tracks from some of our favourite 2022 Canadian releases too, including Bells Larsen, Living Hour, PIQSIQ and more. All yours to download for free on Bandcamp.

With Hanukkah and Christmas falling at the same time year it seemed like the perfect opportunity to showcase Montreal producer/hip-hopper/filmmaker and puppeteer Socalled - who bookends the compilation - as well as a Hanukkah track taken from The Burning Hell’s Mathias Kom's Holy Hullabaloo album.

Our thanks as ever go out to the artists, labels and managers who make this project possible each and every year. Tyson McShane (of Slow Down, Molasses) provided the image of a ski lesson on a farm near Humbolt, Saskatchewan.

All of these songs have been given free for your listening pleasure. We hope you enjoy them and have a fantastic festive season. At this time of year especially there are hundreds of good causes all seeking your help-we hope that, in keeping with the spirit of giving, if you enjoy this compilation you might consider giving a donation to one of them.

Socalled - "Drei Dreidel"

Socalled - aka Montreal’s Josh Dolgin - is a producer, filmmaker, pianist, rapper, beat-maker, puppeteer and long term champion of Yiddish - writing a Yiddish Gangster Puppet Musical, Isaac Babel’s Tales From Odessa, as well as recording an album of Yiddish Songs with Hamburg’s Kaiser Quartett Di Frosh, from which this version of "Drei Dreidel" is taken. Last year he read A Parakeet Named Dreidel on CBC as part of Canada’s Hanukkah celebrations. This year he has been part of Yiddishe Pirat alongside clarinetist Michael Winogrand and Vulpeck’s Jack Stratton, and together released Klezmer Klezmer Klezmer. He also released the fourth and final episode of his hip-hop puppet musical The Season.

With Hanukkah starting at sundown on 18th and continuing straight through to Boxing Day, this seemed the perfect way to start this years compilation, and end it as well, with Dolgin’s electro reworking of the track "Dreidel 2000".

You can see more on the making of Di Frosh here, and watch the live performance from Yiddishe Pirat here.

Evan J Cartwright - "Winter Wind (by Alice Munro)"

2022 was a busy year for Toronto’s Evan J Cartwright. The sometime US Girls and Weather Station collaborator joined forces with former Ought members Tim Darcy and Ben Stidworthy to form Cola, whose debut album Deep in View is packed full of melodic, twisting post punk that strips everything back to its three core elements - and is deservedly being hailed as one of the albums of the year.

Not content with one critically acclaimed record, Cartwright then released his debut solo album bit by bit through Idée Fixe records. Despite being a drummer, the album features very little drums, rather focussing on trumpet, field recordings, minimally plucked guitars and keyboards and Cartwright’s delicate soft tenor, dripping with Chet Baker like delivery. Contemplative, warming and delicate the record is truly a think of beauty, with the space left speaking as much as the notes played around it. Repetitions, loops and slight shifts are found throughout the record, and the theme continues with his contribution to this record, where he takes field recordings of skating, looping strings and layers over extracts from Alice Munro’s Winter Wind.

Jim Bryson - "Mary New Year’s Eve"

Jim Bryson - the king of Stittsville, Ontario is a musical lifer. From his days in Punchbuggy in the early '90s to his solo career that began with 2000's The Occasionals. Having performed with and collaborated with the likes of The Tragically Hip, The Weakerthans, Howe Gelb and most notably Kathleen Edwards, with whom he co-wrote and produced Total Freedom.

Having launched the Survival Tactics Series, a set of singles priced at $30 in order to offset the costs of the streaming/non live world, 2022 saw him release a full record in the shape of Country Wi-Fi.

Delicate, near whispered vocals drift alongside swooning lap steel and Bryson’s near meditative songwriting. Arrows of hope in particular is an introspective masterpiece, with the feel of wrapping up warm against the winter cold, perhaps with a glass of something strong to get through the night.

Bryson recorded and released Instant Holiday Album 10 years ago, and in order to celebrate both this anniversary, and the release of Country Wi-Fi we are delighted to include "Mary New Year’s Eve".

Kristian Noel Pedersen - "Driving Home For Christmas"

Kristian Noel Pedersen is no stranger to Ho! Ho! Ho! Canada. The Toronto-based musician has spent the last 14 years challenging himself to write and record a new Christmas record each year. In one notable year he even managed to record a full cover record of Hanson’s Snowed In for good measure.

This year he has recorded a concept record called Saul McCartney’s Magical Holiday Season, taking on the mantle of an alternative universe pop star, taking a trip through the last four years of pop. Expect Morrissey-like vocals, Belle and Sebastian handclaps and horns, some electro-pop and of course, given the title a hefty helping of the keyboard sound from "Wonderful Christmastime".

Michael C. Duguay - "For Whom The Sleigh Bells Toll"

Michael C. Duguay returned in October this year to follow up 2020’s Winter of Our Discotheque, with the first single from his forthcoming record Saint Maybe, a shimmering '80s chug underpinning Duguay’s pleading vocals, before giving away to a stadium worthy sky-scrapping guitar solo.

"For Whom The Sleigh Bells Toll" very much continues in this epic mode, literally incorporating as many different types of bells as he can find into the mix, and a great singalong chorus, creating a truly classic Christmas single sound, which is fitting given that the song itself is about the act if writing Christmas songs and “the existential freedom found in whimsy and cheer and the opportunity to practice jubilation."

The Burning Hell - "The Last Normal Day"

Garbage Island is a concept album about an island of trash formed in the sea and dominated by seabirds in a too-close-for-comfort post-apocalyptic world. Produced for the first time by the band themselves, it really is the pinnacle of everything The Burning Hell have been working towards for so long, bringing together everything that made fans fall in love with them in the first place: equal scratchy guitar parts, tender harmonies, jubilant bass lines and enough lyrical twists and humour that has become their stock in trade. If the line “They’ve all been making plans for Nigel/ And by “They” I mean the ornithologists”, the intro to the true story of "Nigel The Gannett" doesn’t raise a smile then you may as well stop reading now.

"The Last Normal Day" shines a light on the sad life of a Summertime Santa, scraping by as things slowly fall apart.

Living Hour - "December Forever"

Winnipeg’s Living Hour are more than familiar with the cold weather. In fact, the cold climate of their home town had a massive impact on the recording of third record, Someday Is Today. Recorded over seven days over the middle of winter, the band plugged away at recording as it hit 30 below outside.

"It’s a grind, and it’s incredibly challenging in a frustratingly beautiful kinda way," Sam Sarty says of their local environment. "It pushes you to keep going, to keep finding glimmers to move forward. A silver piece of wrapper sticking out a snowbank becomes your altar. The big grey sky gets me giddy"

Despite the freezing conditions, the album is warm and lush, a celebration of connections that outlast unreachable extremes, or Decembers that last forever.

Ericah Dee Mah - "Snow Angels"

Erica Dee Mah is a storyteller and singer songwriter based in Whitehorse, Yukon. Having previously released a series of indie-folk records she changed things up by writing and recording on the guzheng, a traditional 21-stringed Chinese Zither. Exploring the instrument and its possibilities she combines her songs with the stories of Chinese Canadian identity across the generations, and the family stories passed down of the complications, struggles and challenges of relocation and the immigrant experience.

Delicate, haunting and emotive Dee Mah fuses the old with the new, producing a delicate, beautiful contemporary folk record full of hope for the future.

Bells Larsen - "Sweater Weather"

Bells Larsen’s debut, Good Grief was five years in the making, an exploration of what it is to lose someone, just as they did. Filled with voice notes, and recordings of times spent together over the years, the first voice is that of Larsen’s lost love: "When the record starts and my ex says ‘ready?’, part of me knows that she’s asking my friends and I if we were ready to sing around that fire all those years ago, but there’s also a part of me that feels like--in some way--she’s asking grown-up-me if I’m ‘ready’ to share my songs about grief now."

Dealing with navigating grief as a young queer person, the record is equally a celebration of those that have been lost: intimate, and candid memories fondly remembered and the art of letting go, whilst holding on to the good memories. Delicate, heartfelt and tender the record is a soft-folk masterclass.

Tractor Beam - "I'll Buy You An Angel"

Vancouver six-piece Tractor Beam are another act driving home for Christmas. Dealing with the separation of young love over the festive season, the band call for a new tradition to replace the old depressing world of December sentimentality.

This Christmas single is the latest entry into our good friends Kingfisher Bluez’s Christmas Village collection (each sleeve builds up a wintery Christmas scene. Each year the profits go to 1-800-SUICIDE and Crisis Centre BC. So if you want to start your collection with a hazy slacker-pop Christmas tune, and support some great charity work, click on the links below.

Mathias Kom - "Eight Days And Eight Nights"

Not content with releasing another fantastic album as part of The Burning Hell, Mathias Kom also joined forces this year with Moldy Peach Tobias Goodshank for an album of Roger Miller covers (the honky-tonk novelty song writer, not the Cameroonian footballer). Chock full of whimsical ditties and nonsense styles the record is a joyous celebration of some of the more left-field creations in Miller’s songbook. Another release from Kom that will leave you smiling from ear to ear.

"Eight Days and Eight Nights" is taken from Kom’s Holy Hullabaloo album, a record that celebrates all manner of holidays, including Black (metal) Friday and possibly the only ode to Buñol, Spain’s Tomatina festival.

PIQSIQ - "Ave Maria"

Inuksuk Mackay and Tiffany Ayalik of PIQSIQ return with another installation of their holiday tradition; re-imagining Christmas carols through an Inuit and decolonial lens, this time tackling Ave Maria.

"If anything, our relationship with Christmas continues to grow more and more complex," Tiffany Ayalik says. "This year we saw the Pope visit Canada with very polarising opinions from Indigenous people. There was a lot of lip service and acknowledgement of harm but no actual commitment to aiding in the prosecution of those who committed unspeakable crimes against Indigenous students and their families.

"We wanted to call into question the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church through this song," Inuksuk Mackay adds. "We are soothed with messages of exalting an impossible version of womanhood through the Virgin Mary but the real life experience of women in the church is steeped in misogyny. Women cannot hold positions of meaningful leadership in the Church, can’t be ordained, and don’t have autonomy over their own bodies. Why are women the only ones shamed for abortions or the use of birth control? There should be no celebration for the lack of autonomy imposed on women and their bodies."

Gloin - "Winter Abroad"

Toronto noise-niks Gloin have gained quite the reputation for their cathartic, heavy live sets, pummelling drums and buzz saw guitars undercut by sinister melodies and subtle grooves. Recording with Dylan Franklin of Tallies, and mixed by Graham Walsh of Holy Fuck, latest album We Found This is a claustrophobic, pounding , propulsive listen.

While elsewhere layers of fuzz build on each other, "Winter Abroad" is the albums hypnotic, chiming moment of calm.

Socalled - "Dreidel 2000"

Finishing where we started, Socalled remixed Drei Dreidel as part of his Electranukah Mixtape in 2020, which found him taking a cut-and-paste sampling style, underpinning the dizzying original track with pulsing electronics taking things in another direction entirely- Electro-Klezmer!