[Cover photo credit to Katherine McCullough]

Comedian and musician Reggie Watts has surprised fans with the release of Reggie Sings: Your Favorite Christmas Classics, Vol. 1 via Brainfeeder. His rendition of “White Christmas” is also out as a single now.

Watts takes the “heartwarming melodies and instruments listeners love” from well-known carols, and gives them a comedic spin via “encyclopedic, uninhibited stream-of-consciousness.”

It comes with the warning: “These are carols for people who find holiday cheer in singing about a grandparent being trampled by a hoofed animal.”

Watts created the EP with the help of guitarist Tim Young, who performed alongside the comedian as part of The Late, Late Show’s in-house band.

Watts shares how the EP came quickly and smoothly to them both:

I said ‘Hey Tim, I have this idea. Maybe you could help me with. I want to put together a small band or maybe it doesn’t have to be a band, but I wanna do a Christmas album that doesn’t have to be the full songs necessarily, but possibly the idea is to do traditional Christmas songs, but I’m just improvising the lyrics and it feels kind of classic in some way.’

Tim replied: ‘Christmas is only a few weeks away… this is crazy…but LET’S GO FOR IT!!’ So Tim made a couple of calls. The incomparable Larry Goldings kindly agreed to play piano and Scott Seiver shared his sublime musicality on the drums. Tim played bass and engineered it in his studio. They met at 11 am. The three songs were all recorded live, in one or two takes. The session ended at 11:37 am. This lovely little collection of new Christmas classics was created in 37 min, making it not only one of the most beautiful Christmas eps ever, but one of the most rapidly made!