In that short space between the glorious first and imminent second I LIKE TRAINS albums this numbered, limited edition (1,000 copies) of THE CHRISTMAS TREE SHIP, with a DVD created by video-maker Marcus Macaulay, young choreographer Francesca Macduff-Varley and dancer Jessica Jackson is a great move. The lustrous seasonal music stands a little apart form their mainstream and sets itself (in my household if nowhere else) as a regular December visitor from now on.
The five instrumental-only tracks (What a good idea it is for bands dump the vocalist now and again!) were conceived as a single work, and were recorded in one take, without breaks.
The tale behind the waves of sound is well known to children in Wisconsin, Michigan and Illinois. Descendants of immigrants who worked in the forests and on the ships that took timber down Lake Missouri to Chicago, and city dwellers of Chicago all know about Captain Santa (Herman E. Schuenemann) and his proud, but old and infirm sailing rigger (the Rouse Simmons). All were lost in 1912 in a late November storm as the crew made a dash to the Christmas berths to sell Christmas trees and gifts to the Chicagoans, as they had done for thirty years past. Steamships were already taking over by then, and The Christmas Ships made few trips after that year. The World had changed and worse was to come.
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The music, like the background story, is unmistakably I Like Trains. Thematically the five sections flow as a single work, with the harmonic structure of opening track "The Christmas Tree Ship" taken up in the final section "Friday, Everybody Goodbye". There is an evocation of 20th century sacred orchestral music, and of melodic stoner guitar from beyond. There are echoes of European folk tunes and hints of a pre-modern solstice rooted in family prayers and the labour for survival through hard times.
Captain Santa's wife and children continued to work the Christmas trade after his death, using the railroad to move the trees and their handmade decorations until the 1930s.
Track listing:
1 The Christmas Tree Ship
2 South Shore
3 Two Brothers
4 Three Sisters
5 Friday, Everybody Goodbye
If you can't track down the physical package, the music itself is there in iTunes and so forth.
www.iliketrains.co.uk
www.fantasticplasticrecords.com
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