TORONTO: After spending nearly their entire time as a musical duo wanting to record a Christmas album, Madison Violet has finally unwrapped their first collection of holiday favourites.
Sleigh Bells In The Snow, recorded this past summer in Toronto, blends the unique harmonies of Lisa MacIsaac and Brenley MacEachern into 10 seasonal songs, ranging from the sentimental favourites “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and “Silver Bells” to hymns such as “Silent Night” and a more recent musical discovery, “Big Bulbs,” written and recorded by soul-funk group Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings.
“I think ‘Big Bulbs’ was the most fun out of the bunch to record,” MacEachern recalled.
“Our keyboard player did a killer honky-tonk piano solo on it and it’s just a fun-loving, spunky song. I also loved recording ‘Deck The Halls’ because we really took liberties with it, and made it our own. We didn’t stray too much from the traditional melodies, except on this one.”
MacEachern and MacIsaac maintained the Christmas spirit throughout the recording of Sleigh Bells In The Snow, despite the heat wave that blanketed Toronto this past summer as the duo settled into the appropriately-named studio The Boiler House, co-owned by Stuart Cameron.
“It had no air conditioning at the time, and at any given point, it was about 30 degrees in the control room,” MacEachern recalled.
“But we found that singing lyrics like ‘Frosty the Snowman’ and ‘White Christmas’ kept our minds focused on cooler things, while the beads of sweat were running down our faces.”
As a result of this process, which saw MacIsaac and MacEachern narrow down the album’s track list from 20 Christmas favourites to the final 10, Madison Violet now has an album that has percolated in the duo’s hearts and minds for nearly 17 years.
“We ended up with a mix of Americana acoustic tracks, traditional piano/vocal songs, and some upbeat full-on, dancing-with-spiked-eggnog-by-the-tree productions,” MacIsaac enthused.
“I love Christmas, and I am also one of those people who starts to get into the Christmas spirit as soon as Halloween is over. The first album that always gets put on each year is Vince Guaraldi’s [soundtrack for] A Charlie Brown Christmas…Hopefully we were able to capture some of the feeling that that album gives me each year.”
However, MacIsaac pointed out that one audience member on a recent nine-week European tour wasn’t initially sold on the idea of Christmas music joining the Madison Violet set list.
“We tried to sneak in a verse of ‘Deck The Halls’ on stage in Germany, since we had the Christmas album with us at the merch table, and a grumpy old lady yelled that it was too early for carols,” MacIsaac laughed.
“The rest of the audience cheered us on while we composed ourselves after we started to laugh on stage… That same woman still bought the record at intermission, so it couldn’t have been that early!”
For more information, tour dates and sound samples, visit the Web site: www.madisonviolet.com or the Madison Violet Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.