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It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas trapped in Outer Space

by Shawn Edward Hansen

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Jingle Bells 04:45
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Sleighride 04:06
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Silent Night 05:40
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about

Original liner notes from the 2005 Evolving Ear release:

A Christmas record that makes clear the heretofore unknown connections between ominous synthesizer drones, tipsy Christmas caroling, and the voices in your head that you spend so much time trying to ignore.

It’s surely been said somewhere by someone that it’s a fine line between holiday cheer and total madness, and nothing brings that cliché home like this collection of Christmas classics by Shawn Hansen. A few examples: Mel Torme’s The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) is presented as a paranoid poetry reading by an imaginary friend. Santa Claus is Coming to Town is a Christmas party field recording while Silent Night is reduced to the sound of a long, sedated elevator ride to the top of the Sears Tower.

Shawn Hansen’s guests include Emily Bible, Ferrante & Teicher, Franz Kafka, Peggy Lee, Gustav Mahler, Nate Miner, the New York Philharmonic, Camille Saint-Saens, Pete Wanamaker, and The Wiener Philharmoniker.

Shawn Hansen is the founder of the imaginary record company Sycamore House and the radio station KJEA. He performs with the groups Phantom Limb & Bison, Dirty Pool, the Brothers Zoto and New Scalthzkgazan.

He says, “This album realizes the human struggle between listening to music, playing music, and recording music. May the sorrow of Humankind continue as we struggle with mediocrity and the reality of imagination. Everything is one-of-a-kind, including you.”

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas trapped in Outer Space
Ho. Ho. Ho.

credits

released December 24, 1999

Instrumentation:
EMS Synthi AKS (analog synth)
accordion
vocals
electric guitar
vinyl records
tape cassettes
compact disc
mega phones
long tube

This record was made in two volumes for the 1999 and 2000 holiday seasons. The 1999 volume was released on cassette in an edition of one. The following two volume release was released in a limited quantity on mini disc and CD-R until it was picked up by the label Evolving Ear for a third and still available CD-R release.

This marks the fourth general release of the two volume set making it available for the first time as a digital download.

To order the physical copy with cover and CD-R please go to:
www.evolvingear.com/ee14.html

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all rights reserved

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Shawn Edward Hansen Kansas City, Missouri

Composer Improviser, Phonographer, Piano Technician Charlotte Street Foundation Performing Arts Fellow. EMS-Synthi Ciat- Lonbarde organ piano saxophone. Performs w/ NEAL WILSON (LA), painter LAUREL SPARKS (NY), films with writer CYRUS CONSOLE. Artistic director KJEA radio, a transmitted conceptual space begun 1984. Studied with MARYANNE AMACHER, RICHARD TEITELBAUM, GEORGE LEWIS, PAULINE OLIVEROS. ... more

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