Lit Up -- Music For Christmas, Astrocolor (Softtone)

Not often do you see a group's debut album be a Christmas album, but these folks from British Columbia come to you from beneath 2015's Christmas tree. They call what they're doing "ambient, dubby and jazzy," but it's also pretty poppy for all that, with all numbers clocking in below five minutes apiece and melodies in front at nearly all times. Although it's mainly instrumental, the human voice does take the lead occasionally, even if it's there as punctuation rather than to provide the lyrics. As the songs are all familiar carols, except for "Sugar Plums," this album is a fairly painless introduction to ambient and dub forms. Still, the downside is that this is all kinda samey-samey if you're actively listening to it all the way through; it functions best as background music, though I guess with modern listeners this is a feature rather than a bug. Still, a cut or two of this will probably be a good change of pace in your holiday playlists.