Description
How Like a Winter is a Christmas album by the American ambient project Monk (a solo project by Ric Hordinski of Over the Rhine fame), independently released on Ether Records in 2001. The album was produced by Ric Hordinski. How Like a Winter was Hordinski’s final recording under the Monk moniker and was followed by When I Consider How My Light Is Spent released on Paste Records in 2003.
Also see The Darkest Night of the Year by Over the Rhine.
How Like a Winter is apparently the closest Monk will ever come to recording a Christmas album. The record finds frontman Ric Hordinski applying his distinctive guitar to the task of encapsulating the year’s most celebrated season in intricate, three-dimensional instrumentals, much as he did for Over the Rhine‘s wonderfully melancholy The Darkest Night of the Year. If it weren’t for the winter-themed song titles, the gorgeous red-and-green cover art by photographer Michael Wilson, and the two traditional carols («Greensleeves» and «Coventry Carol»), you might never suspect that Hordinski was yueling around. And yet, those titles – «The Bells», «After the Lightness Comes», «Snow Lion» – reveal the source of the composer’s inspiration, illuminating the winding soundscapes like a soft-glowing Advent candle. The record contains some of Monk’s most melodic instrumental work, and the arrangements are unusually complex and inventive. Hordinski reveals the enormous range of his talent through countless, seamless mood shifts. He finds the colder side of the season with exotic Middle Eastern flourishes in the Yeats homage «What Rough Beast», finds the world’s classiest use of sleigh bells (simulated with jingling tambourines) in «Winter Waltz», and immaculately renders a Bach chorale number on classical guitar. Gently festive and refreshingly attentive to the season’s spiritual core, How Like a Winter is a perfect antidote for the candy-cane overload of jolly Christmas ditties. [Evan Cater, AMG]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/how-like-a-winter/1779045492)
CD tracklist:
01. Greensleeves
02. The Bells
03. What Rough Beast
04. Coventry Carol
05. Winter Waltz
06. Chorale Number 181 (J.S. Bach)
07. After Lightness Comes
08. How Like A Winter
09. Snow Lion
CREDITS. Produced by Ric Hordinski. Art Direction by Gregory Sylvester. Photography by Michael Wilson.
Musicians: Ric Hordinski (Vocals, Acoustic and Electric Guitars, Sustain Guitar, Fretless Guitar, Keyboards, Loops, Programming, Treatments), Paul Patterson (Violin, Electric Violin, Bowed Banjo), Jim Feist (Tabla), Mike Georgin (Bass), Josh Seurkamp (Drums, Percussion).
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