Jesu / Yang Li

Christmas EP

Hospital Productions

MP3 $3.99

12/07/2018 647603403908

FLAC $4.99

12/07/2018 647603403908

“Hospital Productions' hook up with vaunted fashion designer Yang Li for this crazy one-off edition featuring material recorded by Justin Broadrick for Li's by now infamous funeral-themed AW18 Paris fashion week show, plus an alternate 12 minute version, and another 12 minute reworking by Prurient.

Not your typical seasonal paean, ‘Christmas’ was inspired by, in Broadrick’s own words; “the onset of the Christmas period and the onset of emotions and feelings of nostalgia, joy and sadness that the period often evokes”.

Considered a classic in the Jesu songbook, it'ss now paired with ‘Life Mass’, a new version written for London-based Chinese fashion designer Yang Li’s Paris A/W ’18 runway soundtrack, as well as a killer, keeling, noisy overhaul by Prurient.

The dense, chest-bursting post-rock/shoegaze appeal of the original still stands, but, for our money, it’s now bettered by the new material. ‘Life Mass’ is effectively the inverse of ‘Christmas’, catching Broadrick at his most vulnerable and sublime with plangent vox framed by a slow, tear-jerking snowfall of guitars, whereas Prurient renders the title track from a whole other, frosty-window perspective primed for when xmas all gets a bit too much and you need to reset.

Epic.”—Boomkat