Porcupine Tree, É Arenas, and Ever More Nest

We're approaching Christmas, so this week I have excerpts from
longer interviews that I'll run at full length next season.
Steven Wilson is the driving force behind the British art rock
band Porcupine Tree, and last year on a challenge he used
artificial intelligence to write a Christmas song, something he
felt that he couldn't do on his own.


The whole conversation goes deep on the relationship between
artists and AI, and the odd experience of encountering an AI
version of himself online. Here I tried to capture part of that
conversation and keep it relatively focused on Christmas. 


I have a challenge for next season though, because he talked
about his favorite album being a Christmas album by The
Hiltonaires. I've seen it under two different titles, and he
thinks there might be more. Unfortunately, none of them are for
sale in any of the digital stores, so I couldn't find any music
from it that I could play in this episode. If any of you have
digitized a Christmas track from the Hiltonaires, please let me
know. 


The second interview is with É Arenas, the long-time bass player
with Chicano Batman. We talk about his relationship with the band
as it enters an "indefinite hiatus," and how he started a yearly
project of making songs that he considered Cumbia
Navideña--a genre he invited with cumbias for the holiday. 


We only get part way though his catalogue of seasonal music, but
in addition to talking about his own music, he turned me on to
the Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón classic Asalto Navideño and
music by Rigo Tovar.


Then I talk to Kelcy Wilburn of New Orleans' Americana band Ever
More Nest. In 2015, I wrote a story for The New Orleans Advocate
on her first Christmas song, "Christmas with You (Merry Me),"
which at the time doubled as a Christmas song and a celebration
of the Supreme Court affirming the rights of same-sex couples to
marry. As she explains, it also served as a quasi-proposal to her
partner. 


We talk about that, the Christmas music of her youth, and the way
life as a working musician led to her new Christmas
EP, Merry Little Thing. 


This episode also features new Christmas music from Sara Noelle,
Kristian Noel Pederson, and Popular Muzak.  


If you'd like this year's exclusive listeners-only Christmas mix,
email me at alex@myspiltmilk.com.


Finally, follow, subscribe or do what you have to do to get 12
Songs in your podcast feed. We only have one more episode after
this in 2024, then we'll return in time for Christmas in July
2025. If we're in your feed, new episodes will show up without
you having to hunt for them.