I already talked about Seven Octaves some time ago when I reviewed their "Simple Work" CD and since their approach to electronic music is quite unconventional I didn't know what to expect from an E.P. of Christmas carols. Kenny MacKenzie on this digital release (which is on sale at 1.98 USD) presents four traditional X-mas songs "Coventry Carol", "O Little Town of Bethlehem", "Deck the Halls", "Si Me Dan Pasteles" and an original tune titled "Incarnate". The four traditional tracks have been filtered through Kenny's techno ambient touch and sound great. A bit of mystery have been added to the joyful themes and now it seems to listen to Kraftwerk play X-mas tunes going door to door looking for robot hearts to warm. Now "Deck the halls" seems ready to be used for the soundtrack of the next "Clockwork orange" like movie but just check if Santa has a knife when he will visit you and everything will be ok. "Incarnate" is the only original and it sounds like a ambient funk tune that recalls me Vangelis. Nice...

Despite the cover (which didn't give me the idea of the music) Seven Octaves' album SIMPLE WORK amazed me thanks to its freshness and to its particular mix of techno and 70s electronic music. If you are old enough to remember or if you are a young electronic music freak who likes to dig into the shelves of old dusty record stores (if there are any left), you'll remember those records that mixed jazz, classical and ambient music, everything performed with analog synthesizers. Well, Seven Octaves (a.k.a. Kenny MacKenzie) has the same attitude of those records but he adds also nowadays techno sounds/rhythms and a little experimentation (like on "Phone thing") with melodies that sometimes could sound naive but that express a joy of playing that will affect you. His jazz pianist activity is also showing its influence on his style and on tracks like "Tussle in B minor" or the opening "A minor is such a lovely key" you'll find yourself asking: "are these modern remixes of old Goblin's tunes?".