The Christmas Adventures of UltraJoeBot

Browsing through some of last years downloads I noticed one of the tracks was from an album with Binary in the title which for some reason (probably my love for chiptunes) made it stick out. I played the track and before it had even fully kicked in I was hunting down this We Wish You A Binary Christmas and A Happy New York album it said the track was from. And thanks to the wonders of correct MP3 tagging I was in a few more seconds shown that UltraJoeBot (with help from Friends) has made 3 EPs of Christmas music this far and there they all where ready to be sucked on to my hard-drive. The same magic can happen to you if you click the picture of UltraJoeBot as he appears in his web comics or click this more obvious link.



It's easy to make comparisons between the sound of these releases and that of The Postal Service, I only say that here so that anyone thinking they may be able to find a Postal Service Christmas song will find these instead. These D.I.Y release are possibly some of the best Indietronica (if that's a tag I'm allowed to give) Christmas tracks I've found to date and that's not just because as have to confess (though I shouldn't) the only such songs in genre I can think of. The covers are given a fresh touch with the computer sequenced beats, the one "parody" track Carol of the Cat doesn't suck at all but the stand out piece have to be the originals (which I've marked with an *). The guitar's tend to play a much stronger role in these tracks that have a good set of original lyrics. Fat Suit has become one of my favourite tracks of the year, telling the story of Dave who now needs to wear a fat suit to play Santa after losing 30lbs. All I wonder now is if this is a great song based on true story or an even better song for having the creativity to make such an inventive track in the mall-Santa genre.

Top Marks go and download now



We Wish You a Binary Christmas and a Happy New York (2005):
01. Chinese Tea Dance (from The Nutcracker)
02. Snow*
03. Do You Hear What I Hear?
04. Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming
05. Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

We Wish You a Binary Christmas 2.0 (2006):
01. Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy (from The Nutcracker)
02. Coming Home*
03. Carol of the Cat
04. Wonderful Christmastime
05. O Holy Night

We Wish You a Binary Christmas 3.0 (2008):
01. March (from The Nutcracker)
02. Fat Suit*
03. NYC/XMAS*
04. Christmas Time is Here
05. The Drive Home 12/24*