Morton Valence - Christmas in Valence

  by John Clarkson

published: 10 / 12 / 2011

Label: Bastard Recordings
Format: CDS

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First-rate download only Christmas single from South London band, Morton Valence

With all the excess of this time of year, thank God then not so much it’s Christmas, but for Morton Valence. Their Christmas single, ‘Christmas in Valence’, which is available only as a download, is a master class in understatement, and the perfect antidote to seasonal overkill. ‘Christmas in Valence’ was recorded by Morton Valence’s mainstays Robert Hacker Jessett and Anne Gilpin live in their South London basement on Christmas Day 2009. Breathtakingly beautiful and simple, tiny plucks of sleigh-bells and glockenspiel and the patter of soft rain flutter around a stark acoustic guitar line. Jessett and Gilpin’s shared vocals meanwhile demand attention by rarely raising themselves above a whisper. It tells of two lonely hearts finding each other against the odds at Christmas, and is an after hours record in much the same way as are the Velvet Underground’s ‘I’m Sticking With You’ or Morton Valence’s self-confessed main influence of Hank Williams and ‘I’m so Lonesome I Could Cry’. When Jessett sings, “If you weren’t around, I would have nothing to do,” it is as much heartbreaking as it is heartwarming. With unemployment soaring, the European Union in crisis, pensions being cut and ‘The X Factor’ single undoubtedly top of the charts again we could all do with a little miracle or two this Christmas, and Morton Valence with ‘Christmas in Valence’ provide exactly that.

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