It’s the least wonderful time of the year: The sad indie albums saving Christmas Ed Power © Provided by The Independent
Christmas has always been complicated for Chilly Gonzales. “I feel a bit oppressed by it,” the pianist and producer says. “The forced smile, the entire capitalist dream that we’re being sold.”
His unease with the season of good cheer extends to festive music. Jolly seasonal songs don’t really work for this Montreal-born son of Ashkenazi Jews who fled Hungary during the Second World War. In fact, they strike him as slightly dishonest.
“Christmas songs shouldn’t only be this performative optimism,” he says. “They should contain a grain of melancholy. Especially in 2020, it’s tone deaf to say, ‘Oh Christmas is all going to be ‘happy happy’. I try to live in the real world.”
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