A Christmas Album, Bright Eyes (Saddle Creek)

Though I trade on my Web affiliations with Amazon and iTunes, as a music fan I still enjoy pawing through the stock at a well-kept independent record store because I've always ended up finding things I might not have otherwise. Take this 2002 CD by alt-wunderkind Conor Oberst under his better-known band de plume, quietly released to benefit the Nebraska AIDS Project and listed on his label's website as an Internet-only album. Nevertheless, I found a brand-new copy of this in the stacks at Record and Tape Traders in Towson, MD over Thanksgiving weekend, and Amazon currently links to a limited number of copies of this disc. As to the music, well, this is 10 of your better-known carols plus a dramatic reading of "The Night Before Christmas," all slapped together bull-session style in Oberst's basement with a cast of friends and collaborators. The leader's lo-fi style predominates, particularly on a rendition of "Little Drummer Boy." An uptempo "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" is as rocked-out as it gets -- the rest is a kind of mellow chamber-folk, though the performances are more spontaneous and less polished. For fans of the artist only.