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Christmas is skittering nearer and nearer to my hands and head, in all its long legged glitz and small minded prettiness. With that said, there’s a lot of common ground that can be gained, a lot of burned bridges that can be rebuilt depending on how you treat folk this time of year, specifically.

Strangers and loved ones are more properly receptive to consideration in December. We listen more, we appreciate well when it gets a little colder, and we all expect a bit more warmth. This time of year, the golden rule applies with a whole heap more muscle than normal.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Replace the operative verb in the cliché with give, and you have the fundamental precept of my gifting policies. Tinoil rimmed purplepaste brooch and tie clasp sets for one particularly lovely ex-girlfirend aside, I try and huck around the right presents for the right people. Specificity is generally the key, but sometimes some gifts supercede individual tastes and desires. Give someone an album that sounds like the underpinning of the first 15 years of their life, they’ll never forget your favourite color. Give them an album with that sort of relevance that they never knew existed, and they’ll never forget the story explaining why blue is so important to you.

As such, here are a few of those sorts of records that could make you the most hip, intuitive gift givers Christmas has ever coughed up.

The Hush Sound So Sudden. This is a band within a band within the kids you ignored in grade school. This is all horn rimmed glasses and poorly strung guitars and the sort of melody lines that will melt your heart down to the sweet steel of it all. It’s a bit Beatley, as if Billie Joe Armstrong and Julie Doiron were thumbwrestling for Macca’s spot in the group.

Jay Dilla Donuts. Hip-hop is sample based. So, essentially, this album is the sound of a base being broken up to fit exactly into the crevices of one severely stoned genius brain. Donuts is a collection of beats that seem to have been sucked from the ether, run slipshod through the early 70’s and dropped into Dilla’s twitching hands. Technically flawless, intellectually frightening, horribly entertaining.

John Mayer Trio Daughters. Smartpop, or rather, all the things that make pop the most sensible musical genre get stretched to the sighing point on this album. The Grammy board rarely gets it right, but when they gave Mr. Mayer the song of the year nod for Daughters, the nail was hit til it wept. When you hear his live interpretation and interpolation of D’Angelo’s Send It On in this collection, you think maybe this song could win the friggin Nobel Peace Prize, if it gets played loud enough in Kosovo or Fort Green or somewhere that needs all this loveliness.

Darien Brockington The EP. The kid is D’Angelo without all the insecurity, Anthony Hamilton free of the stiff posturing, he’s basically the closest thing to a singing Kanye West I’ve heard since I heard, well, Kanye West tried to sing. Modern R&B with teeth and tenderness. If you want to convince someone pretty you have the right intentions and even better taste, this is the one.

All these albums can be googled up pretty quickly, but if you need help acquiring or even just hearing any of these records, email me at [email protected]. It may be the best decision you make this month. Merry Christmas.[[In-content Ad]]

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