Bongo Boy TV: Season 12 Episode 08 – This Must Be Christmas – Various Artists

So here we are, at the end of another year, another 12 months of regular musical missives from those fantastic people at Bongo Boy, who have passed in a flash, and 2023’s final instalment of their rock and roll TV show. This final blast of the great and the good of today’s rising stars and breaking music is a short, sharp, and shockingly good seasonal sonic greeting card and early Christmas present all wrapped into one.

Things kick off with our favourite rock and rollers, The NEW Bardots, and their retelling of the first chapter of the greatest story ever told, accompanied by some of the grooviest licks ever played. Christmas Must Be Tonight might be following in some very traditional footsteps. Still, the NEW Bardots aren’t letting that stop them from kicking out the Christmas jams and turning things into a real holiday hootenanny. It’s what they do.

Things take a real change of pace with Dream, from SEAY, which sees us in more classically, and indeed classical, Christmas realms. Ethereal and atmospheric piano music graced with heavenly harmonies, creating the titular dream state. It is graceful and full of grandeur, elegant and musically eloquent, the perfect music to fill the house with exactly the right vibes as you settle into the holidays and prepare to spend time with your loved ones and possibly even your family.

Lyia Meta keeps us in the traditional zone with a powerful and anthemic rendition of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, perhaps one of the most iconic melodies, a song perhaps 400 years old and still as popular as ever. Lyia Meta takes this late medieval marvel and injects it with some modern energy, resulting in a song that is familiar to all yet delivered in a fresh and contemporary way. Even tradition can move with the times, it would seem.

SEAY is back again with the powerful and poignant We Are One, a track that gathers world music sounds, tribal beats, shimmering strings, drifting sonics, and upswells of classical beauty. But more than the music, great as it is, it is the message which is important. A song that tells us to celebrate what draws us together rather than the things that set us apart is a timely reminder in these dark and fractured times.

Graceful Antelope is Grayhawk‘s scintillating offering, a gorgeous collection of delicate music that seems to shimmer with gentle, primal forces as if conjuring the voice of the earth itself through cascading strings and floating flutes, and a video which really underlines the song through images of beautiful vistas and exquisite landscapes. Coming after SEAY’s message of love and hope for our fellow man, this song carries the same sentiments, this time with our home planet as the focal point.

Jose Calarco rounds things off with Dreaming Under The Sun, a song that seems part blissed-out pastoral pop, part green activism, and part back-to-the-earth hope for the future, all of which we should embrace more.

And that’s it for another year. Undoubtedly, 2024 will see Bongo Boy bringing us even more music suggestions, video offerings, pre-compilated collections and singles and albums by all the artists that need to be on our collective radars. Until then, I want to say thanks to them for the work they do; thanks to you, dear reader, for allowing me to indulge in my scribbled opinions and have a great holiday, and I’ll see you on the other side, refreshed and ready to help change the world, one song at a time.

Official website: bongoboytv.com
Contact: bongoboyrecords@aol.com