Christmas Midgets, The Found Sound Orchestra (self-issued)

Here's another free album of mashups for 2010. FSO is an Australian outfit, if I'm reading the tip e-mail correctly, and this collection of sample-mongering knits together a wide selection of rock and non-rock, Christmas and non-Christmas material into nine fairly listenable songs that obsessives can pick apart to identify their constituent parts, or can just play in the background at a Christmas party. In fact, the almost mellow results FSO gets here stand in contrast to the more in-your-face mashups constructed by the DJs and musicians on the Santastic collections. As a result, you may have trouble identifying particular numbers from this for your mix discs. Nevertheless, this is a good example of the current state of the mashup art. I especially like how old middle-of-the-road music gets spruced up when it's laid over 70s era R'nB beats on many of the songs here. Download it from the website.