Welcome to Episode 7 of Holly Jolly X’masu! In this episode, I cover the 2014 compilation, “Flying Dog Christmas,” from Flying Dog records. I figured this would be a good choice for August, expecting to be in the dog days of summer, but ended up recording it during a stretch of fall-like weather.

I didn’t realize it at the time I chose it that all the songs were taken from Anime. I’ve never really gotten into Anime so I’m not familiar with any of the shows or characters. Forgive me if I messed up some of the pronunciations.

I also have to apologize for how I sound, at least in the first part of the episode. I was coming out of a horrible stretch of insomnia when I recorded it and I didn’t realize how much I sounded like a zombie until I was editing it.

As we enter the Ber Months, I’ll be covering some absolutely exceptional albums. I’ve been learning the ropes over the last few months and feel a lot more comfortable with this than I did back in April. I’ve also added some really remarkable albums to my collection and I’m eager to start sharing them with you. As much as I enjoy the music I’ve already discussed, I’m extremely excited about the albums I have in store. A couple of them are albums I’ve mentioned already, or that are somewhat familiar to real diehard Christmas music collectors, others are albums that are obscure even in Japan. I’ll be discussing everything from Jazz and Funk, to early 70s Now Sound Pop and one of my favorite 80s compilations. A bit further down the road, I’ll be covering a couple of early 70s boy bands and one of the top Japanese female vocalists of the 20th century.

As always, thanks for listening. Next month, I’ll be featuring the album, “Christmas Tenor Mood” by the Nakamura Hachidai Quintet and Hidehiko Matsumoto. This is one of the best Japanese albums I own. It’s an exceptional Christmas Jazz album, and something you don’t want to miss. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions or recommendations, feel free to send them my way.

Any feedback on this episode would be appreciated. If you’d like to recommend an album for a future episode, drop me a line and let me know.

Remember, I’ve added a button to my Ko-fi page. If you’d like to support me one cup of coffee at a time, a donation is only $3. Any donations received will be put towards purchasing new Japanese Christmas music to review for future episodes. You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. And if you get a chance, leave me a review on iTunes. Thanks!