Even though there’s something sacred about time-honored traditions, there’s only so many years you and your beloveds can sit beside the Christmas tree and listen to Sufjan or “Last Christmas” or the same old yuletide indie rock. It’s time we spruced up our collective Xmas indie rock playlist with some newness! Even if Christmas isn’t your thing, you gotta respect a holiday responsible for this.

We’ve lovingly assembled a small playlist worth of new holiday tracks from artists you might enjoy, and they’re going to sound great to you while you decorate your Solstice tree. Merry downloading!

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This morning we sent out the final ‘Gum Drop of 2009 and in the spirit of the season decided to pass along an updated take on a Holiday standard. Last year Neutral Milk Hotel/Music Tapes’ Julian Koster released The Singing Saw At Christmastime. He recently returned to his workshop and recorded a new saw-only carol, “Let It Snow!,” which debuted in this week’s Drop. When we made a joke to Julian about his saw, aka North, chopping down Christmas trees, he reminded us saws saw: “He’s made a nice big table for recording machines to rest on, but saws generally refuse to chop, being of the sawing persuasion. Clearly you are thinking of the singing axes. They’ll chop anything.” Fair enough. We also asked him about the song. Read his response to a question about Global Warming and its effect on “Let It Snow!” while you listen to the track.

Today’s ‘Gum Drop also offered you a chance to win an Epiphone Dot Studio Semi-Hollow Electric Guitar.

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Julian Koster has a specific vision and saw-singing sound for The Music Tapes, so you shouldn’t be too surprised by much of what goes on in the Pluto-homaging “For the Planet Pluto” video. It features background vocals by fourth graders from Barrow Elementary School in Athens, Georgia and stars Major Organ And The Adding Machine‘s Kiran Fernandes and Sophie Fernandes. Speaking of organs, you’ll also spot Kevin Barnes playing “The Slightly Sinister Father.”

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The spate of recent Jeff Mangum sightings tended to obscure the fact that, yes, there are other people who were/are involved with Elephant 6, Neutral Milk Hotel, etc. One such lifer is wire recorder, singing saw, and Christmas enthusiast Julian Koster, who’s going strong with his refurbished and road ready Music Tapes. “Majesty”‘s the second video from his new collection, Music Tapes For Clouds And Tornadoes. It was created by Koster with Belliah Gallons. It mixes vintage found footage with shots of Koster creating his vintage transmissions from the moon.

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NPR is streaming the 10/21 Bottom Lounge stop on the recent E6 Holiday Surprise Tour. Tunes from Olivia Tremor Control, Apples In Stereo, Music Tapes, Neutral Milk Hotel and other Athens all-stars are featured, but a few songs (including encore “Engine”) were omitted from broadcast at the artist’s request. (You can listen to it here, though.)

The crew here managed to fly through some 70+ sets of music last week, and boy is our abilty-to-wade-through-the-sadness-that’s-passing-for-buzzed-up-indie-rock tired. There’s a very scientific formula to attaining that coveted “Guess I should see this band ’cause everybody’s saying I should” status: The first criteria is, of course, a widely circulated Hype Machine single. But in its absence, and even more effectively in its support, just book at least 10 shows. That is: create a story out of yourself before anyone even has time to think critically. (I realize this is the approach even on non-CMJ weeks, but roll with me, I drank a lot of vodka these past 6 days. Yes that means today also.)

Even through a relatively depressed industry fest like this one, though, story-hungry writers always need to find and frame a next big thing. Always with the finding and the framing, those guys. So who capitalized on this year’s assemblage of the industry’s finest cog pieces? MTV says it was Passion Pit, the NYT says School Of Seven Bells or Friendly Fires, and I say after that rant do you really think I have one? OK, I sorta do. But instead of trying to shoehorn a new band into a breakout mold where there isn’t a clear one, I’ll instead avoid feeding the undue praise machine and just offer a quick list of the acts — young and old alike — that made this year’s CMJ a great and yes, memorable one (despite itself). Without further ado, my CMJ Top 8 of ’08:

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Joining the Tobacco triumph a few days earlier, Mercury Lounge hosted a couple more of my favorite sets this fest in the recently revitalized (and recently Mangum-ized) Music Tapes, and Baltimore breakout Wye Oak. The successive sets were a contrast in styles — the Music Tapes presenting multi-membered ragamuffin ditties, Wye Oak a stripped duo of loud/quiet guitars, drums, and swirling electronics — but both combined to show why Merge (and label head Mac McCaughan, who played later in the night as Portastatic) still matters.

After main Music Tape Julian Koster sang a scene-setting song, set solely to banjo strums, his band joined him onstage: two drummers, a bassist (with a flute at the ready), horn players, a guitarist armed with a violin bow, etc. Koster kept a steady smile through tunes from both 1st Imaginary Symphony For Nomad and the new For Clouds And Tornadoes, songs that are nautical (“Song For Oceans Falling”), extra-terrestrial (“Aliens”), and existential (practically everything else) in theme. Koster was often on that elephant-painted banjo, but he’d trade it for a guitar or keys or to bow his ever-present singing saw. His vibe is humble and quirky, simple yet otherworldly, and it extended to all facets of the live show: still heavy on props like back in the day (yes the 7 Foot Metronome is still in on the act), songs coming stripped to an acoustic core or with ragtag, E6 brass band support. Early in the set Julian winked at the recent rash of Mangum sightings:

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We’ve checked in with Music Tapes a few times this year, and before that got all sincere over In The Aeroplane‘s 10th birthday, but things have been fairly quiet on the Jeff Mangum front in ’08. (Though the Neutral Milk Hotel founder did get married in January.) So we were surprised to get so many e-mails about him this morning! Jeff made his first onstage NYC appearance in years at last night’s Elephant 6 Holiday Surprise Tour (“a large gathering of Elephant 6 members playing the music of The Music Tapes, Circulatory System, Scott Spillane, Gerbils, Elf Power, Olivia Tremor Control, Nana Grizol, Nesey Gallons…”) Here’s reader Cait telling us about it, along with some video:

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Anyone who’s listened to Julian Koster’s work in Neutral Milk Hotel or the (newly revived) Music Tapes knows he’s into the singing saw. So, though it’s a hot and sticky day and a longtime from the Holiday season, it’s no surprise Koster, along with Nesey Gallons, has prepped The Singing Saw at Christmastime with his so-called Singing Saw Orchestra. Along with the stripped-down saw tunes, we’re told Koster’s written an “‘anthropological’ study of the traditions of saws at Christmas” to accompany the collection. A tidbit:

Singing Saws sing all by themselves. The idea that a Human Being could play one, as one might a cello or a tuba, is a common misconception perpetuated
by the saws themselves for their own amusement.

That’s true. Take a listen to Julian’s “Jingle Bells” while you mull the track list and cover art.

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A ways back we posted the happy news that Julian Koster was dusting off the singing saw and wire recorder for a new Music Tapes record. Now you can stream it in its entirety at Merge. (Thanks for the tip, Beth.) On our initial pass it sounds like First Imaginary Symphony For Nomad: Poppy, twee, creaky, air-tunneled, a.m., a little creepy, good. Soak it up.