WORLD'S END GIRLFRIEND – XMAS SONG 2014

It's Christmastime! Christmas! CHRISTMAS! CHRRRIIISSSTTTMMMAAASSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's Christmas. Again! It's cool. I like Christmas a lot. It's a lovely time of year. Just wish I got to see more snow when it rolled around but oh well. It's ok!

And because it is Christmas, Christmas Day in fact, here is a Christmas song. I've been awake since 5:30am playing Smash Bros., Nintendoland & Mario Kart 8 with my brothers after like 2 hours' sleep O_O. Now almost 3pm. I've had a nap now. And a shower. It was a good start to the day.

Arriving courtesy of Virgin Babylon Records (who are also responsible for releases by a load of interesting Japanese artists, inlcuding N-Qia, amongst others) it's a track by World's End Girlfriend, a musicmaking project by Katsuhiko Maeda, simply called 'Xmas Song 2014'. What more do you want in a title?

And it's totally fitting; the whole song is basically a huge variation on a theme, a nutty electronic virtuoso re-doing of 'Jingle Bells', which moves from cute, glitchy subtleties, through beat-heavy repetitions via distorted synth stylings and explorations of pushing synthesised sounds past what they're normally supposed to do, arriving at the end panting and breathless after a manic almost-7-minutes of hyperactive electronic symphony-crafting. In some ways, it's the perfect soundtrack to the manic energy, zany (yes zany) fun and excitement of Christmas – if you're not devoid of a heart, that is.

All the while, samples from 'Jingle Bells' are cut-up and patterned to varying degrees of legibility, making this one heck of a remix (if you can call it that) and one heck of a Christmas song. There are no words involved really, but if you want an utterly unique song to add to your catalogue of Christmas classics, this is the one. THIS IS THE ONE.

And the video. That's the other thing: it's just as crazy. Filled with the chaotic, magical fun of Christmas, how it should be, what every good Christmas film should effuse and be imbued with.

Merry Christmas everybody, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

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• Treat yourself to a Christmas present today and buy this for $1 on Virgin Babylon's Bandcamp page (if you like, that is).

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CARPAINTER – SUMMER LETTER

My bias towards things named after things from videogames continues with this one right here from a Yokohama-based DJ and musicmaker called Carpainter (real name Taimei Kawai, he also heads up label Trekkie Trax). If you know Earthbound (a game for SNES that was last year re-released on the Wii U eShop) you'll know that this is a reference to Mr. Carpainter, the leader of "the Happy Happyist" cult that appears at one point in the game. It's not my first encounter with Carpainter, but every time I re-encounter him and his music I can't help but feel warm and fuzzy thanks to the reference.

If indeed it is a reference. If it isn't and I'm just being stupid then I dunno, I might cry. Hey, it's Christmas Eve. I'll give myself the benefit of the doubt.

I don't know if it was released earlier in the year or it was just an unreleased gem that was kicking about in the ether – either way I'm just glad it's here. Kind of moving on from the footwork that seems to have characterised his music in previous months and years, Carpainter's sound moves onto one more inspired or at least influenced by UKG.

The skiffly beat in this track 'Summer Letter' is nothing but garage, with its kinetic hi-hats and pulsing kick, as are the the chipmunked pitch-shifted vocals, singing out with unintelligible yet catchy energy – and the occasional chops of these vocals seem tiny, but this is garage through and through.

Add to this a constant background bustle of summer insects chirruping, misty synth chords that add a kind of dreaminess to it all, heavenly synthetic harp noises, and you have a unique, subtly-dance-oriented foray by Carpainter into a genre that previously soundtracked the oft melodramatic lives of British teenagers 10 years or more ago, one that is joyful and wholly refreshing.

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• This appeared on European label/club entity Top Billin Music's compilation Premium Crates 4, which aims to "look back on what happened in the past 12 months, and also what the future holds for club music."

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A. G. COOK – WHAT I MEAN

Have I written about anybody from PC Music here on YES/NO yet? Hmm. Not sure. Not that I remember. So that probably means no. But that is by no means a statement against them. I am quite strapped for time most of the time so I'm not able to write about everything that I like. It's often just what I'm in the mood for on that day; for instance, from the last 3 days I have a list of 30 or so songs, some of which I may never write about.

I sometimes wish I were multiple people – it'd be easier to do things that way. Especially if I could have one avatar for doing particularly boring things like… no actually, every experience should be experienced by me. It's my life, after all.

Anyway, A. G. Cook, London-based producer and the final boss of PC Music, has shared some music with us via Annie Mac's Free Music Mondays (meaning this is a free download too – back of the net). Mr. Cook and his label have gained a ridonkulous amount of attention this year, mainly from withholding information and generally making quite groundbreaking music; the sonic equivalent of shock-and-awe tactics; shocking audiences with "unlistenable" (to some) but expertly produced tracks before awing them with ones that are more legible, more conventional – something that might be like an exclusivity clause to 'weed out' people without open minds.

Maybe? Hmm. This is just a crackpot theory by me, however, and must not be paid attention to.

A. G. Cook's latest offering is called 'What I Mean' and it puts me in mind of a roaring fire inside a warm homely room as winter blusters outside in the cold – an oasis of heat in a frozen world – joyful vocal samples skilfully chopped and placed on a patterned paper-chain of melody, ornamentations above the diamond-clusters of synth, flickering above the neo-groove of the squelchy bass and robust, simple beat. It's also laden with vocal samples, a female ooo-ing and some male, I dunno, words and stuff, all serving to decorate this lightly lilting plasma surge of squeaky clean French-Touch-esque music. It doesn't exactly sound anything like any of his other tracks, and why should it?

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CELADON CITY – EVERY NIGHT

To be totally honest with you I was first attracted to Celadon City because of the name. Any Pokémon fan will tell you that Celadon City is the 'big' city in the Gen 1 games (Pokémon Red/Blue – plus later gens set in the same area), the big apple of Kanto, which has skyscrapers, a mall and a casino. A pretty happening place.

If you know all this already, I hope you didn't mind me saying it. If you didn't, go play a Pokémon game or like, go read about it on Bulbapedia.

With all that said I'd like to introduce Celadon City. Well, not really "introduce" because he's not here or anything. Rather, I'd like to introduce a new song of his called 'Every Night'.

In keeping with the VGM theme we started on, it kind of sounds a little bit like something that could soundtrack the gentle, sleepy atmosphere of night in Animal Crossing – at least at the beginning; soft guitar arpeggios and delicate piano twinkles ripple alongside nocturnal breezes and sampled insectoid chirruping.

But then there are claps, percussive ticking sounds, ghostly javelins of icy synth, muted strings, a more robust exploration of those piano sounds growing richer and more fulsome. And towards the end, after a tease of a beat, it arrives with crashing intensity, cymbals exploding like fireworks and frenetic clockwork hi-hats taking up the higher end of a swaying beat, an ear-satisfying crescendo of sound.

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JONAH BASEBALL – WORLD SERIES

Man I don't know a lot about baseball or anything like that but this track by Jonah Baseball sure is really cool. It's called 'World Series' and it I guess effuses the same final boss / colosseum tournament at Dressrosa in One Piece that the World Series must have. Actually it's more of a journey of sound that I suppose is inspired by the World Series, the romance and the history of it all, the uninterrupted majesty of legacies made and broken.

See, I don't know anything about it but I got a bit of borrowed nostalgia for something I've never experienced from this track. It must be a good track. An electronic symphony to baseball in like five parts, it begins with the ominous mystery and nervous tension that stepping up to the plate must produce. Wiggly chords and synth vox make misty atmospheres over a snappy, jangling beat, with each snare hit like a baseball being hit out the park.

Then the track rears up on its hind legs and goes nuts, destructed almost brassy bass swaggering like a giant, descending into super-crunch distortion after a sweeping, almost cosmic breakdown. Then we talk a relaxed walk to the rhythm of a beautifully skittering beat with accented hi-hats, emerging from the previous crunchy madness into a refreshing world of soft, jazzy chords, joined by thin mists of synth and a playful squelchy lead melody, a reminder that it's not all drama in sport but it's fun and romantic, too. A many-tens-of-thousand-strong crowd cheers at the end.

Jonah Baseball, who is from America and basically makes music + loves baseball, has worked some real magic with his music, leaping into conceptual storytelling and producing a mini symphony with distinct movements containing their own energies and moods.

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• 'World Series' arrives courtesy of London producer Slugabed's label Activia Benz + is number 4 in their Singles Club series.

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