the garlands

I’ve long suspected that there exists in Scandinavia some government funded secret operation pay rolling a factory producing a conveyor belt line of audaciously perfect pop combos. Latest to the list the Garlands who we happened across by pure accident when doing a spot of background on the aforementioned younghusband cover. It seems that this lot have also covered ’I don’t intend to spend Christmas without you’ on the flip side of a newly rephrased version of a self penned nugget of their own entitled ’Christmas song’. limited to just 500 copies and pressed up on dinky white wax 7’s this is one of four releases being put out by the Snowflakes imprint as part of their first Christmas singles club. We’ll try and nab the other three for later mentions. For now though the crystal tipped ’Christmas song’ – what can we say – utterly adorable, a playfully affectionate pristine pop posy lightly dusted in the affectionate lilt of an early 70’s Beach Boys dialect all gorgeously dilly dallied with a sweetly arrested Free Design flightiness that’s sumptuously haloed in baroque pop braids that sigh with Left Banke ingenuity all sugar rushed in harpsichords, oboes and sleigh bells, St Etienne admirers will swoon longingly. Okay yes maybe it does sound a tad ’I get the sweetest feeling’ but hey – still perfect….