For many of us here in the northern hemisphere, ’tis the season to be chilly. With the weather seeming intent on cranking up our heating bills, we’ve got just the thing to help you hunker down for the winter.
These ten albums all evoke wondrously wintery feelings, whether through explicitly spelled out themes, chill vibes, an icy delivery, or all of the above.
We’ve resisted on going too gimmicky here. Christmas has been and gone, so you won’t find any chintzy sleigh bells or syrupy odes to mystical reindeers among our picks.
These are all classy LPs, picked for their stone cold classic status. They might well give you chills, but it should hopefully be a thoroughly pleasurable experience.
Whatever your musical tastes, there should be something here that you’ll find cool, pun thoroughly intended. We’ve got breezy folk, icy electronica, fresh jazz and more.
In no particular order, here's ten of the best long-play listens for the winter season. Which of these wintry albums is your favourite?
1. Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow
The great Kate Bush has always created airy, elemental music, but her ninth album, 50 Words for Snow, is the most overtly wintry of them all. All seven tracks are said to be “set against a background of falling snow”, while lead single Wild Man tells the fanciful tale of a group of Himalayan explorers stumbling upon evidence of the yeti. The music throughout is suitably lush and organic, with a pristine sense of space and clarity, all warmed through by Bush’s inimitable coo.
2. Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago
Written and recorded whilst a heartbroken Justin Vernon was holed up in his dad’s remote Wisconsin hunting cabin, For Emma, Forever Ago is a winter album right down to its bones. From Vernon’s painfully lovelorn lyrics to the album’s sparse folk instrumentation, For Emma, Forever Ago is guaranteed to send chills down your spine one way or another. If that wasn’t enough to qualify this stunning album for our list, consider the fact that the artist’s nom de guerre literally translates as ‘good winter’.
3. Leonard Cohen: Songs of Love and Hate
Quebec native Leonard Cohen was never exactly known for his sunny disposition, but in Songs of Love and Hate he hit an early high (or should that be low?) point of cold hard despair. If we’re talking explicit winter references, there is of course the obvious opening gambit of Avalanche. But few songs can make you feel the dark bitterness of the season like Famous Blue Raincoat, with its dismal tone and opening line of “It’s four in the morning, the end of December”. Brrrr.
4. The Knife: Silent Shout
The notion of a winter album might make you think of cosy downtempo music, possibly of a folky persuasion, and this list has you covered if so. There’s nothing so icy as the electronics found on The Knife’s Silent Shout, though. You won’t find anything static or somnambulant about these processed beats. Cuts like the title track, We Share Our Mothers’ Health, and One Hit will make you want to jump up and down and stomp your feet – and not merely to keep warm.
5. Nick Drake: Pink Moon
If Five Leaves Left supplied that glorious autumnal feeling, and Bryter Layter was a shot of uncharacteristic sun-soaked cheer, then Pink Moon is surely Nick Drake’s winter album. Lacking any of the warm orchestration of his first two LPs, this third and final effort largely consists of the frazzled young artist alone with his guitar and his disquieting thoughts. It’s one of the most lonely yet beautiful records out there, and the kind of album that makes you want to crawl under a warm blanket for the afternoon.
6. Fleet Foxes (self-titled)
It’s easy to forget the excitement that accompanied folk revivalists Fleet Foxes when they emerged with the sparkling Sun Giant EP in 2008. Later that same year they dropped their winter wonderland of a self-titled debut. From the gambolling White Winter Hymnal to the gusty Blue Ridge Mountains, the album is the aural equivalent of an untouched snowy field at dawn – ideally calibrated for quiet contemplation, if only you could keep yourself from jumping in the middle and making snow angels.
7. Greg Foat and Art Themen: Off Piste
Both the least well known and the most modern album on this list, Off Piste is shot through with beguiling counterpoints. This winter-themed team-up of contemporary keyboard whizz Greg Foat with British saxophone legend Art Themen expertly treads a slippery path between twinkling ’70s lounge, soulful jazz, yearning soundtrack, meditative ambient, and blissful chillout music. Our talented duo, together with their impeccable backing band, carve across genres with the supple grace of an Olympic skier. The combined effect is like a breath of alpine air.
8. Sigur Rós: ()
Sigur Rós tracks can (very) loosely be divided into those tracks that have been used to soundtrack wildlife documentaries about arctic whales, and those that could be. Winter is kind of in this Icelandic band’s blood, after all. However, it’s the band’s awkward second album that we’re featuring here. It doesn’t have the Attenborough-worthy hits of the flanking albums, but its eight untitled tracks, languidly spreading out with restrained instrumentation and mantra-like lyrics (sung in a made-up ‘Hopelandic’ language) evoke clear visions of icy vistas.
9. Burial: Untrue
Many of the albums on this list conjure an idealised vision of winter, all crisp snow and snug log fires. Burial’s landmark second album evokes winter as he and his fellow Brits actually experience it: walking along a cold, dark, wet street; head down and hood up. It’s filled with scratchy, ghostly vocals and distorted electronics, as if the master tapes had been left out in the London rain. This is music for dank, dispiriting commutes, quite likely involving a train delay or three.
10. Björk: Vespertine
Vespertine is Björk’s wintriest album yet. Many of her most avid fans may well disagree, given the sheer number of cool, crystalline bangers this modern day genius has turned out over the decades. However, Björk herself once referred to Vespertine as her winter album following on from the hot, sweaty Homogenic. “This one’s like … those days when it’s snowing outside, and you’re inside with a cup of cocoa and everything’s very magical,” she told MTV. We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.
