My record collection
[202] Dean & Britta & Sonic Boom - A Peace of Us

So, after 20 years of Dean (and Britta, and Sonic Boom) slowly building a catalogue of Christmas songs, their Christmas album has finally arrived, and what a beauty it is.

Dean & Britta & Sonic Boom - A Peace of Us

“20 years!?” I hear you say.

Yes, it was in December 2004 that Dean emailed me an mp3 of “Old Toy Trains”:

Andy,

I am attaching a song I thought you might want to put up on your site as a giveaway:

Old Toy Trains (Roger Miller)
performed by Dean Wareham, Britta Phillips and Sonic Booom
Mixed by Sonic Boom

We're going to put it up on the Luna site too.

All the best,
Dean

Email from Dean Wareham (December 2004)

… and since then there has been a fairly regular trickle of Xmassy goodness from Dean…

• 2004 - Dean & Britta and Sonic Boom released “Old Toy Trains” as a download via Fuzzywuzzy and AHFoW.
• 2006 - Sonic Boom did a remix of “Old Toy Trains” and it is once again shared digitally.
• 2007 - “Old Toy Trains” / “He’s Coming Home” got a vinyl release on Chimney Rocks! records.
• 2014 - Dean did an Aquarium Drunkard “Lagnapipe session” with “Christmas Can’t Be Far Away” and “Stille Nacht”.
• 2017 - Dean & Britta and Sonic Boom released “Little Altar Boy” for “Home for The Holidays” an Amazon digital album.
• 2019 - Dean covered “Snow is Falling in Manhattan” for a David Berman tribute album.
• 2020 - Dean & Britta did a gorgeous Instgram Live performance of “Do They Know How Christmas Trees Are Grown”
• 2020 - Dean & Britta did a Christmas live stream that includes “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”, all of the above… and more.

So, it was no surprise to hear early in 2024 that Dean & Britta were working with Sonic Boom on what was to become A Peace of Us.

It is a beautiful LP, I must admit I approached it with some trepidation - I LOVE Christmas and Christmas records so it had to be good to live up to my expectations, not just good actually… better than that! But it is lovely - all the above tracks are included in either re-recordings or remixes (mostly the latter I believe), and all sound special - although the missing “Go Dean!” in “He’s Coming Home” still smarts somewhat - particularly as I had just described it as “one of my absolute fave little bits of Dean & Britta’s recorded output”… but it’s still a beauty, and I do have the Chimney Rocks! release to go back to… or I can just add the “Go Dean!” myself… which I do!

My copy was the “Christmas splatter” edition released by Rough Trade - I (have so far) resisted also buying the green vinyl copy… but… tempted!!

I do also rather love the sleeve art by Marco Papiro, the way that the CND symbol has been worked into it… because now more than ever Nuclear Disarmament sounds like something we should be working very hard to achieve!

• Catalogue Number: AHFOW 12/104
• Artist: Dean & Britta & Sonic Boom
• Title: A Peace of Us
• Notes: Rough Trade exclusive “Christmas splatter” vinyl
• Format: LP
• Bought from RT for £27.99
• Buy ‘A Peace of Us’ on Bandcamp