The Richard Peterson Orchestra Plays Christmas (Green Monkey)

Pacific Northwest label Green Monkey has provided us with a number of fine alt-rock Christmas albums over the years. For 2024, they're dropping this album, which at first glance doesn't seem in keeping with the label's reputation; at first listen you assume this is a bit of retro-Christmas orchestral pop. Indeed, most of the songs are public domain classics, although Richard offers two originals, "Christmas By the Roundabout" and "On Christmas Day," both midtempo ballads, and a couple of the classics are augmented by the otherwise unidentified Phil Green: "'Phil Green' Sleeves," featuring some additional lyrical flourishes along with the "What Child Is This" lyrics normally offered, and "Green Christmas, God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." There's also versions of "Little Drummer Boy" and "It's Christmas Time Down in Bethlehem." The publicity notes that Richard is influenced by soundtrack music of the early television era, and as an indie musician, he achieves his sound with the heavy application of synth keyboards to provide the string and horn sections that soundtrack music demands. This is an extremely quirky offering, but it's also pretty listenable. On Bandcamp and elsewhere.