December 14 and the door opens on our Essential Advent Calendar to Daniel Martin Moore with his song, ‘It’s Christmas’.
Moore, hailing from Kentucky, USA, is a new one to us here at Essentially Pop, but we chanced upon his Christmas song and loved it so much we thought we’d add it to our Advent Calendar. A slow, soothing number the song reminds us of Jeff Buckley’s take on Leonard Cohen’s classic, ‘Hallelujah’.
Accompanied by a lyric video in what is presumably Moore’s own handwriting, it’s an old-time style Christmas song you can imagine playing in the background while you’re preparing the food for Christmas dinner, or as you’re winding down after having stuffed yourself full of said food.
Daniel Martin Moore has released five albums to date, 3 of which were on the Sub Pop label, following an unsolicited demo he sent them in January 2007 – they were so impressed they released ‘Stray Age’ the following October, with ‘Dear Companion’ and ‘In The Cool Of The Day’ in quick succession. His other two albums have been released on his own OK Recordings label (‘Ol Kentuck’) – ‘Farthest Field’ (with Joan Shelley) and ‘Golden Age’.
‘Dear Companion’, which was recorded with fellow Kentucky musician Ben Sollee, aimed to create awareness of the problems surrounding mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia. Moore and Sollee donated their artist profits from the album to Appalachian Voices, in support of their campaign to end mountaintop removal mining. The pair toured with Jim James (who also features on the album) in 2010, including an appearance at the Newport Folk Festival.
We love Daniel’s sound, and hope to bring you more about this fascinating artist in 2016.
You can find Daniel online on his website, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube. You can buy ‘It’s Christmas’ from Sofaburn and iTunes. Check out the rest of Daniel’s music here.
