FORGET ME NOTS
Tracey Thorn Tinsel And Lights
ESCHEWING THE USUAL CHRISTMAS CLICHÉS WITH A STUNNING COLLECTION OF FESTIVE COVERS, TRACEY THORN OPTED FOR AN ALL-ROUND WINTRY SOUND ON FOURTH SOLO RECORD, TINSEL AND LIGHTS. NINE YEARS ON, JON O’BRIEN TAKES A LOOK BACK AT THIS UNFAIRLY IGNORED GEM.
Tracey Thorn’s voice is many things: wonderfully expressive, beautifully melancholic and imbued with as much pathos as an all-day marathon of It’s A Wonderful Life.
It’s not, however, something that automatically screams ‘festive cheer’, which is why the announcement of her 2012 fourth solo LP, Tinsel And Lights, felt like a turn even more leftfield than Everything But The Girl’s mid-90s pivot into post-party electronica.
Of course, Thorn was never going to succumb to the usual Christmas album clichés. You won’t find a single sleigh bell among its dozen tracks, and the only concession to the traditional singalong is a sparsely-orchestrated rendition of Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas, the Judy Garland standard apparently capable of reducing Thorn to tears.