- For me, the holidays often seem like an irritating melody, repeated and stretched to mind-numbing monotony, punctuated by staccato putdowns from family members.
Lindstrøm, being the tongue-in-cheek genius that he is, has tapped into that Groundhog Christmas Day feeling and put out a 42-minute version of "Little Drummer Boy." Let me repeat that for you just for effect. 42. Minute. Little. Drummer. Boy. It was inevitable I suppose. When it comes to holiday cheer, techno fans have had to subsist for too long on Jingle Cats and Manheim Steamroller.
Thing is, the track—available as bonus with Lindstrøm's recent album with Christabelle, and as a standalone download elsewhere—is insane. When the iconic pah-rum-pah-pum-pum hook stabs at oh, about the 10-minute mark, it's been chopping and skipping and fencing with a Super Mario Bros. jump sound for so long, that it sort of gives you that hallelujah orgasm that certain Boredoms tracks have perfected. It's basically the Christmas miracle.
Halfway through, slabs of discordant string radiance start messing it up, the melody dissolves and the whole shambling polar rave explodes into a trick crescendo that keeps spiraling upwards like a barber shop pole. When the scene changes again, we get muffled voices singing the ditty—the effect is one of children singing up from a cavern through crystal tubes. It's oddly moving. And I'm a guy who fucking hates Christmas, so kudos to Hans-Peter for degrinching me for three quarters of an hour. In the last 10 minutes or so, the little boy is joined by his big drummer daddies, their big cymbal brothers and basically the whole percussion family banging pots and pans in honor of the nativity. It even gets a disco bassline. Jesus wept.
I mean, let's be fair. This is a one-time listen. The little drummer beat is a martial snare looped into the deepest folds of my cerebellum. I don't need it ever again. But if you're in the mood for a quiet evening of ketamine and eggnog, I have just the track for you, pah-rum-pah-pum-pum.
Tracklist01. Little Drummer Boy