A Very Cherry Christmas 17, various artists (Cherryade)

The folks at British indie-pop label Cherryade continue with their annual Christmas tradition of an old-school compilation album despite having all but ceased year-round operations. The curation has for years been curated by label head Rachael Neiman and for the past several years she's been assisted by radio/podcast host Gareth Jones. This year's collection of 25 tunes includes 16 specially commissioned for this collection, the remaining tunes having been culled from various digital sources including Bandcamp. It's CD only; apparently rights issues prevent it being streamed or downloaded, and the cost of vinyl is well beyond the curators' budget. As always, this is indie-punk-pop-rock with attitude, evoking everything from fractured 60s girl-group and garage to 80s synthpop. Selected highlights include "Christmas Number One" by Problem Patterns, solid girl group with guitars; The Photocopies' "I'm Not Coming Home For Christmas" only lasts a minute but you'll want more; The Surfisticats go all instrumental on "Santa Bring Me a Surfboard Please"; Toy Disco goes lo-fi synth-pop on "A Gameboy For Christmas '96"; you office supply geeks will go for The Twelve Hour Foundations' "Thank You Letters (Written on Basildon Bond)," as they namecheck a particular brand of stationery; "Thinking About Christmas" by Portable Radio is a cute piano-led bit of music hall pop-rock; The Get Arounds give us a rocking ode to "Xmas Radio" that few would come up with in this age of all-Christmas radio stations with playlists of 20 songs, seven of which are Mariah Carey; Madrid 's The Yellow Melodies return with "Por fin es Navidad"; Building Rockets produce their own original song "Christmas Island," though they cover similar ground with a Jimmy Buffett treatment; Edam Edam, from France, gives us "Krampus," sung in the demon's own voice; Keith Burton gives us some British quirk with "Christmas Food Shopping In Adverse Weather Conditions, On Foot," evoking the Bonzo Dog Band; Canadians In Space offer "Peace & Gravy," keeping holiday dinner in the forefront; Baby In the Bitch Seat rocks out a tribute to "Mrs. Claus"; Goddammit Jeremiah offers "Keep Your Christmas Tree For Burning," a cool punk thrash; the often-included Hanna Barberas offer "It's Christmas Time Again," previously released; Pete Drake and Doctor Bongo offer "A Spider's Christmas," which if you listen closely offers tribute to UK singing superstar Cliff Richard. There's more of course. Hurry over to Bandcamp to order the CD, as they don't press very many copies of each year's offering.