October 5, 2010 – 11 Acorn Lane’s new release “Happy Holy Days” is out now. Three years in the making, it features a very personal selection of our favorite festive songs.
Imagine a holiday party in that great bachelor pad in the sky, where Esquivel, Henry Mancini, and Serge Gainsbourg are on the guest list. 11 Acorn Lane – the NYC duo comprised of Swiss-born Thomas Feurer and Englishman Neal Pawley – have created the soundtrack to that soiree. Witty, meticulous, and above all festive, the duo’s latest release ‘Happy Holy Days’ (Oct 5/Wooden Hat Music) mixes eleven yuletide classics including “Silent Night,” “Deck The Halls,” “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and “Oh Tannenbaum,” into a potent holiday cocktail with traces of funk, exotica, electronica, traditional European music and more.
‘Happy Holy Days’ may sound like the work of a full orchestra, but it was painstakingly arranged and recorded over three years by two guys in one room. Locked away with an armory of instruments ranging from ‘60s analogue gear to the latest cutting edge technology, 11 Acorn Lane spent “hundreds and hundreds of hours of throwing ideas back and forth,” says Feurer, “trying out different grooves, chasing a vibe, building an orchestra out of the sounds in our heads. ”
Genres and instrumentation shift at the drop of a hat; horn sections and drum machines collide with upright bass and stacked harmonies, only to give way to Spanish guitars and trilling flutes. Listen to album opener “Jingle Bells,” and you’ll get the idea.
Listen to every track on the album right here.
