As we take that headlong plunge through the late parts of the year, things can get a bit depressing. Going to work in the dark, coming home in the dark, there’s not much fun to be had. Fortunately, the Solstice is on the way, acting as a tiny ray of hope.
Janice Burns and Jon Doran know all about darkness and hope. On Great Joy to the New, their latest wintertime album, there’s chilly contemplation and great, warming hugs. There’s the flicker of a candle flame in the gloom; they seek to conquer with quietness.
It is, however, Doran’s voice that explodes out of Derby Ram [Roud 126], joined in ecstatic harmony by Burns. There’s real joy, genuine excitement, a sense that wintertime is about to bubble over into something delirious. A strummed acoustic guitar, a brace of cornets, a tuba and a makeshift choir add to the Sally Army glee; this is the sound of Christmas as it echoes down a snowy village street. It’s not show-y or gaudy, tinsel-y or flash, this is how December sounds in the heart of England.
For the most part, Great Joy to the New is deep-filled with a selection of slightly-less-obvious winter songs. The Janice & Jon version of Carol of the Beasts is taken from the singing of Pete Seeger and overflows like the banquet in a great hall. Bouzouki plinks herald more gorgeous brass and glorious harmony. Doran is deep and rough, Burns high and sweet. The mandolin holds a glistening water-line until the brass sweeps in, a rush of cornet, trombone and tuba. They swell, filling in the spaces between the voices and the stringed instruments. The Wexford Carol [Roud 22086] shows the strength of Burns’ voice, it is, again, high and sweet but there’s power too. Ben Nicholls double bass is characteristically springy, and Doran’s fiddle simply lovely. Again, there’s this feeling of honesty, a lack of pretension, a lack of tacky glare.
If Green Grows the Holly was, as seems likely, written by Henry VIII then this version would certainly find favour at court. The British Library have deemed this “carol for three voices” as a “failed classic” but Burns takes it slowly, echo-y atmospherics whisk around her as an acoustic guitar shimmers icily. There’s a dark and chilly clearing in a dense forest somewhere that is gently ringing with this. Down in Yon Forest [Roud 1523] is, likewise, arboreal. A song from The Oxford Book of Carols and dated to the early 1500s, it starts with just the two voices, in perfect, beautiful harmony. Twinkles are slowly added, acoustic guitar and a pocket piano glint, they are moonlight reflected from icicles.
It’s an easy, and boring, hipster opinion that there are “no decent Christmas songs”. Easy it might be, horribly ignorant it undoubtedly is. If we can, for a couple of moments, ignore Noddy, Mariah and the rest, then Jon Doran and Janice Burns give us plenty to spark seasonal joy. Not least of which is On Christmas Day [Roud 1078]. They describe it as “bleak” but it is, in fact, gorgeous with Burns, once again, trilling and swooping sending the words heavenwards. If it depicts a vengeful God then the careful inhalations of breath add a tremble of adoration. Dunstan Lullaby [Roud 8885] has a delightful intensity too, fiddle and harmonium flicker next to a gently plucked double bass until the cornets creep in, steadily filling the room. To drift away to sleep to this would, surely, put dreams of sugarplums firmly in your head.
Burns’ mandolin gives some of the songs on Great Joy to the New a slight country-edge. Month of January [Roud 175] is almost bluegrass, with windy atmospheric wooshes blowing dusky Appalachian purples across a Scots mountainside. The Trees Are All Bare [Roud 1170] is also needled with mandolin, but it is much more of a winter-y pastoral, harmonies and sleigh bells encouraging a round-the-table singalong.
In the spirit of generosity and gift-giving, Doran and Burns throw open their doors and invite a friend to sing. Norwegian singer Mari Bjørkøy adds a further layer of tissue paper delicacy to Haugebonden, a medieval ballad from Telemark, before Doran and Burns harmonise, swirling their hypnotic spell across frozen spaces. The three voices are exquisite, as snow dusted as you could wish a Norwegian winter to be.
In a world where the Christmas colours are often too bright, where the capitalist call shouts too loudly, Jon Doran and Janice Burns have fashioned the perfect snow-globe of an album. It’s an enclosed world, gentle but exultant, quiet but welcoming, a glow in the darkness. It’s a Christmas that we could all strive for.
Great Joy to the New is out now and available from Janice and Jon’s Bandcamp page on CD, vinyl and digital.
