RYKO

The critically-acclaimed UK singer-songwriter Thea Gilmore's holiday collection Strange Communion, was released on November 3. This carefully crafted album is a stirring, poignant journey into the heart of the winter season filled with twists and turns of celebration, introspection and often skepticism. With deep humanist joy at its core, Strange Communion reflects on the rituals and contradictions that come with the trimmings of the holidays.

From the choral splendor of "Sol Invictus", her acappella opening ode with the award-winning Sense Of Sound choir, to the ethereal beauty of “Midwinter Toast” and “December in New York”, to cover versions of obscure songs by Elvis Costello (The St. Stephens Day Murders”) and Yoko Ono (“Listen The Snow Is Falling”), Gilmore’s crystalline voice and dazzling lyrics shine throughout this collection. Rounding off the festivities on a cheerful note, the catchy single "That'll Be Christmas" indubitably adds more spice into the mix as Gilmore lightheartedly sings “French beer and mistletoe…faith, hope and gluttony…me missing you again, that’ll be Christmas.”

Since making her debut album at 18 years old, Thea Gilmore has blazed a fiercely independent path while earning critical acclaim and admiration from renowned artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Joan Baez and Martha Wainwright. She is also hailed by press as the “most prolific and intelligent wordsmith of her generation” according to The Independent, and “the most coherent, literate and charged British singer-songwriter of her generation” says Mojo Magazine.