Listen: Kristen Lawrence Halloween Tracks
Are you in the mood for Halloween yet? Why not? Everyone is getting into it now. Etsy's sending out daily e-mails filled with Halloween merchandise, stores are stocking candy and decorations, and user-generated media sites are getting into the spirit of the season. It's the most wonderful time of the year. Kristen Lawrence, a classically trained singer and organist, set out to write original Halloween songs. For a holiday with such a rich history and mythology, there really isn't much original music. If more artists like Kristen Lawrence stepped out with songs like these, it wont be long before you can't change a radio station without hearing a Halloween song.
What Kristen has going for her is a great ear for Baroque music. She's doing very restrained arrangements on the organ that can open up for fusion elements. The drums in "Souling Song" are not period appropriate; they're not meant to be. They're a pulsing tribal drum pattern designed to evoke long-forgotten histories of fire-filled rituals on the night where the wall between the living and the dead is supposed to weaken.
Her vocal is simply beautiful. She knows how to tell a story with her voice. She shifts her tone to match the content of the song without losing the emotive performance style.
It's fun, catchy, kitschy, and dark enough to please any Halloween fan. You can find all of her songs at her official website.