By Keith Walsh
Just in time to put us all into a Merry Christmas vibe, Black Market Dub dropped a video of their reggae version of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town,” which is a peek at the sure to be glorious 8 track holiday set titled A Black Market Christmas coming very, very soon. When the vinyl releases there will be a few extra songs as well.
The track (and album) features Nate Bridges on keys and guitar, Wise Owl (Brandon Niznik) on bass, guitars and keys, with Dub Robot and John Roy on saxophone, and it’s just so super cool. Of course there’s the pristine engineering from Bridge’s High Noon Audio. I spoke with Bridges about the album and will include our complete interview on its release. In the meantime, he tells us about the epic set.
Nate Bridges of Black Market Dub: We’re developing a brand new Christmas album called ‘A Black Market Christmas,’ featuring all new covers of classic Christmas songs. The concept was to have five songs inspired by classic Christmas songs from the 1950s/1960s, and five songs inspired by the more religious traditional songs from the 1800s. The first set was arranged by me with Brandon Niznik playing a support role, and the second side was arranged by Brandon with me playing a support role. All the songs feature Brian Wallace (aka Dub Robot) on sax playing all the melodies, with guest appearances from John Roy of Smoke and Mirrors Soundsystem on saxes as well. Side A is “Christmas Eve” and it’s kind of an upbeat party, and Side B is “Christmas Morning” so it’s more downtempo, and somber. The plan is to release 8 songs digitally this year on Bandcamp in time for Christmas and then we’ll be launching some kind of campaign to get it pressed to vinyl with an expanded 10-song tracklist in time for next Christmas. It’s a really crazy album and it’s taking us forever to finish but we’re determined to get it out this year with vinyl on the way.
The album also features epic artwork by Anthony Carranza of Shape Comics. I’ll feature it when the album is out but in the meantime you can catch a glimpse in the video.
High Noon Audio
Black Market Dub On Bandcamp
Wise Owl On Bandcamp
Dub Robot Dot Com
Smoke And Mirrors Soundsystem
Anthony Carranza On Instagram
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