The number of internal references in this blog post pretty much says it all: Clean Pete has been reviewed a lot here at Christmas A GoGo. And not without reason, because the two Christmas angels Loes and Renée have taken Christmas music in the Netherlands to a much higher level in their own way. Today they released their second Christmas album, after the acclaimed Gloria from 2019 that even made it to number 6 in the Rolling Stone Christmas release chart as a Dutch-language album.
Winternacht (Winter Night), their second full length album contains many tracks that they've released in recent years, such as these ones with Maaike Ouboter, with Judy Blank, with Tim Knol, Stephanie Struijk, Robin Kester and Mark Lohmann.
But there is still plenty of new songs left to enjoy, such as the atmospheric opening 'O come, Emmanuel', accompanied with heavenly harp playing by Remy van Kesteren.
The impressive Piëta, which Renée previously played on their famous Christmas shows, has also made it to vinyl, as has a wonderfully jazzy version of 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas', the classic from 1943 by Hugh Martin which now became a duet between Loes and Mart Bouwman, who also shows the saxophonist how it's done.
Too bad though they chose to leave out this contemporary climate Christmas track. But hey, there has to be something left for that third album.
Personal favourite is 'Ondanks Alles' (Despite Everything), a melancholic track that doesn't need Christmassy sleigh bells with such beautifully moving, bluesy lyrics and sober accompaniment of only organ, cello and violins. Let the tears flow, until they become crystals in the snow and then move on.
Beautiful. Leave Christmas to these two.
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