that time of year

Every year since 2004, I have made myself go a little crazier at Christmas time by recording a small collection of standards and originals and releasing it on the interwebs as a Christmas e.p. The process has become more time-consuming as the years have gone by, largely because of my non-recording workload and my increasing pickiness about what goes out from these offices (a result of listening to the previous years’ Christmas e.p.’s, no doubt).

Anyway, I have done it again. Apologies all around. You can download a zip file of the e.p. here and a zip file of the art here, or you can hear the songs individually below:

Snow
Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
Goodbye for Christmas
Trim Your Tree

If you’re looking for scapegoats, all blame goes to me for performing and recording. By the way, I wrote the third song, just in case any followers of this irregular blog think I haven’t done anything since August 24 (nope—I’ve been busy writing and playing in another band, and that’s taken a lot of the time I would’ve used to make stuff here). I think next year will necessitate a longer gestation period for the Christmas e.p., which means I might start putting this stuff together in August (Goodbye for Christmas was recorded in November) so I can avoid this week-of-Christmas urgency in the future. I say that now, in 2011, and who knows how it will have played out, Future Pat.

Hey, Merry Christmas. I hope yours is bright and full of good stuff.