Before a low-fidelity curtain of fleeting melodicism, Marty Achatz unfurls a poem describing an impossible peace within the realm of war, his words meshing with the backdrop rather seamlessly, even for a modern record. Streaking in Tongues are providing the instrumentation while Achatz leads every verse in the new album Christmas with Bigfoot, and while theirs is undeniably a more refined, avant-garde brand of expression, I would recommend those feeling a bit blue this holiday season give it a spin. At times an open-ended conversation, Christmas with Bigfoot is as experimental as an album with such a title gets, but its greatest attribute just might be its defiance of contemporary pop storytelling codes, and, more specifically, the sociopolitical subtext they so often suggest.
With Mr. Spock in tow, Achatz’s poetry draws his sister into the fold for a deeply emotional tale in “Live Long and Prosper,” which could well be the most immersive and cinematic of the six tracks on this record. There’s a lot of tension between the verses, perhaps because of the virginal silence that our narrator straddles so elegantly, but it inevitably comes undone roughly ten minutes into the performance. It would be interesting to hear Achatz and Streaking in Tongues play this material live, or perhaps in an even greater instrumental capacity, but for the conservative setting they were utilizing here, I don’t know that they could have given us anything better than what we get in this incarnation of Christmas with Bigfoot.
“Christmas Grammar 2020” examines Christmastime in a pandemic in so many words, but it doesn’t repeat any of the same themes we’ve been hearing across the dial in the past two years. There’s a lot of introspection in this record, but it never comes off as insular because of the tone through which Achatz is stating his emotions. He’s letting Streaking in Tongues’ whimsy infuse with his lyrical wit in a manner that turns even the slightest trace of camp into something really heavy and feeling, which isn’t something that happens because of sheer luck. These are artists on each other’s level in a way that can’t be faked, and their bond produces such stunning depth in the likes of “Bigfoot and Little Women” and the simpler “The Hand of God” that it’s easy to understand the critical love for this LP.
There are no two ways about it – Christmas with Bigfoot is as much an emotional juggernaut as it is a recollection of the elements that ultimately comprise a real holiday season. There’s redemption to be won, love to be surrendered, and a lot of self-analysis to be accepted in this piece, but more than anything else, there’s a sense of collective emotional kinship that goes past what I normally expect out of an album. Although I love a standard Christmas listen as much as the next person does, this is an erudite treat fans of Streaking in Tongues, Marty Achatz, and the modern alternative music movement are going to love right out of the box.
Heather Savage
