A very chilly christmas Chilly Gonzales

• 1White Christmas02:23
• 2Silent Night02:45
• 3Good King Wenceslas02:01
• 4Silver Bells02:39
• 5God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen02:27
• 6Last Christmas02:25
• 7The Banister Bough04:10
• 8Jingle Bells01:44
• 9All I Want For Christmas Is You01:40
• 10In The Bleak Midwinter02:12
• 11Snow Is Falling In Manhattan04:06
• 12O Tannenbaum01:39
• 13Maria Durch Ein Dornwald Ging01:23
• 14O Come, All Ye Faithful02:26
• 15We Three Kings03:00
• 16Auld Lang Mynor01:32
• Total Runtime38:32

Info for A very chilly christmas

Christmas songs are often the very antithesis of festive reality and also pretty bizarre in their concept. Santa Claus is coming to town after having spied on you all year, it’s the most wonderful time of the year – to feel under pressure, get into debt and keep a smile on your face whilst you’re rocking around the tree… Merry Christmas everyone!

As we all wait to discover which song has been given the ‘singing from a ditch’ treatment on this year’s John Lewis advert, take the time to seek out something altogether more palatable – the holiday album you didn’t know you needed in your life but which proves to be an unexpectedly cordial companion.

Resplendent in smoking jacket, Grammy award winning Chilly Gonzales has produced an album full of elegance and emotions on this collection of seasonal songs, think Nick Cave at the piano and a smattering of smooth strings mixed with the tinkling expectancy of a silent movie soundtrack. From Silent Night to Jingle Bells, everything gets a sleek update and if you must do a cover of Last Christmas, this is how it should be done, the grandiose addition of cellist Stella Le Page paying the appropriate amount of respect to a songwriter talented above his commercial success.

The collaborative tracks add extra layers, with sugar-coated vocals from singer-songwriter Feist on The Banister Bough and regular associate Jarvis Cocker breathing an almost sinister spoken vocal into In the Bleak Midwinter. Both artists return for one of the optimum moments of the album on Snow is Falling in Manhattan, a track that fellow Canadian Leonard Cohen would surely have approved of, a Hallelujah for the pandemic if you will.

peaking about the record, Chilly Gonzales says, “Christmas is a time of very mixed intense emotion for me, and the existing canon often sounds like a forced smile. Christmas is a typical time for superficial happiness, but also a time for reflection and mourning the sad events throughout the year. The songs of A very chilly christmas make room for a more authentic interpretation of this very peculiar 2020 holiday season.”

The overall experience draws a hypnotic familiarity that conjures up images of the fireplace draped in holly, whilst a slightly dysfunctional family play charades as grandma falls asleep in her armchair, an empty sherry glass in her hand and a smile on her face. Not your average Christmas album but then it’s not been your average year. All in all, A very chilly christmas is a veritable box of gift-wrapped treats best opened early.

Chilly Gonzales

Chilly Gonzales
Grammy-winning Canadian pianist and entertainer currently living in Europe, is known as much for the intimate piano touch of best-selling albums Solo Piano I and Solo Piano II as for his showmanship and composition for award-winning stars.

Gonzo, as he is known to close collaborators, aims to be a man of his time, approaching the piano with classical and jazz training but with the attitude of a rapper.

Chilly Gonzales holds the Guinness world record for the longest solo concert at over 27 hours. He performs and writes songs with Jarvis Cocker, Feist and Drake, among others. With Never Stop, Chilly Gonzales composed a global hit for the inaugural Apple iPad 2 campaign. In 2014 he won a Grammy for his collaboration on Daft Punk’s Best Album of the Year and composed the best-selling book of easy piano pieces Re-Introduction Etudes. With the 2015 album Chambers, Chilly Gonzales devoted himself to finding a modern take on chamber music before completing the Solo Piano Trilogy in 2018 with Solo Piano III. 2020 sees the return of Chilly Gonzales to the stage with a new program that opens, as always, with various medleys of intimate pieces from the Solo Piano Trilogy.

Both hits and hidden surprises from the rest of his repertoire will be found interspersed with new Christmas-themed Masterclasses full of playful explanations about how music works. This December 2020 tour … so close to the Holidays … will surely contain some very Chilly Christmas surprises.

This album contains no booklet.