MP3 of the Week: Jesse Dee, "Underneath the Christmas Tree"

Jack Younger’s venerable Allston hideaway has given Boston many treats over its 10-year existence (artists from Eli Reed to the Black Clouds to Tulsa to the Tampoffs have tracked there), but A Very Basement 247 Christmas might be his greatest gift yet: a front-to-back album of all-original Christmas music that doesn’t suck reindeer balls. M.G. Lederman’s woeful dirge (“The Worst Christmas Ever”) is a grim but lovely foil for Graham Gregory’s jolly “Jesus and Me,” and tracks from the Coffin Lids, the Big Big Bucks, and the Ramblin' Souls suggest that “Christmas spirit” is just a fancy way of saying Wild Turkey. Of special note is Jesse Dee’s marvelous ghost of Christmas past, “Underneath the Christmas Tree,” which balances its austere old-soul sound with a coolness as fresh as the first snow. Download “Underneath the Christmas Tree” below, or hear it on New England Product, this Sunday night from 11 pm to midnight on WFNX 101.7 FM.

-- Michael Brodeur

DOWNLOAD: Jesse Dee, "Underneath the Christmas Tree" (mp3)