This is not a holiday mix. It’s not covers of christmas carols or “festive creations” like Sting’s medieval winter ballad album. It’s a very special Incongruous Quarterly presentation of music that happens to coincide with the holidays; a convergence of timing and extra-specialness in the air. IQ’s mandate is “publishing the unpublishable,” so myself and fellow curators Emma Healey and Mike Chaulk approached our favourite artists to submit “unpublishable” work. Something that may not fit anywhere (or hasn’t YET fit anywhere) in the artists’ oeuvre except for maybe a place in their heart. And the results we got were astounding, marvelous treasures. Some artists rooted through their back vaults of unreleased gems (Jumbling Towers with a cut song from their 2008 Kanetown City Rips); others took the cue to create a totally new thing (Holy Fuck’s immense iPhone 7-minute epic, and Mean Wind even made up another band and then covered them!). Some artists sound the way you’d expect (Little Scream jaw-drops another powerfully simple track, and Grand Trine with an incredible demo of a new song) and some sound so different you double-take (Amy Klein from Titus Andronicus shows quite a different side, and Jasmyn Burke of RatTail reads a poem!). But all together, it’s a very special collection of works, all misshapen and beautiful, all completely right to be presented in this style, in a mixture of the roughly hewn to the finely polished. So here are nine incongruous tracks, all at different points on the spectrum of “unpublishable,” all working together to make your holidays even more one-of-a-kind.

- Daniel Beirne

Holy Fuck – “Collected Sounds 2010” [7:32]

“Music by Holy Fuck, sound collage by Graham Walsh. All sounds recorded on an iPhone in Montreal, Berlin, Cleveland, Chicago and Madrid.”

Grand Trine – “Euthanize Me (demo)” [2:52]

“A demo that we sent to a few labels and no one was interested in releasing. Those we sent it to deemed it unpublishable!”

Jumbling Towers – “Back In The Two Hand” [3:06]

“‘Back in the Two Hand’ is an unused track from our Kanetown City Rips LP.”

Jasmyn Burke (RatTail) – “Poeme” [0:45]

“Jasmyn wrote a poem and recorded it over voicemail. It’s both cold and warm, like the feeling of a lover becoming a stranger. Production by Jesse Frank Matthews.”

Lowlands – “The Longest Winter” [4:45]

“Recorded at a live show in Guelph, ON.”

Siskiyou – “Sunshine” [2:02]

“This was recorded in a similar fashion to the original record . . . rather spontaneously. I awoke in the town I was living in at the time (Grindrod, BC) and decided that I would try to learn this classic folk song without listening to it at all. (reason for only one verse . . . it was all I knew.) I quickly recorded it . . . I think while my wife was in the shower. And then forgot about it.

Skip three months ahead . . . Erik Arnesen arrives in Grindrod to finish recordings for our next record at the local community hall. He contributed banjo and ebo guitar. This changes the song substantially. Ultimately it is both an embrace and rejection of folk music.”

Mean Wind – “Darius Rucker is Dead (Chord Progressians cover)” [3:18]

Amy Klein (Titus Andronicus) – “I Know What You Want” [3:58]

“I wrote this song the day before I went into the studio to record. That’s pretty last-minute – especially for me, since I usually like to meticulously plan out all the various experiences of my life ahead of time. Recently though, I’ve realized that taking risks is often more rewarding than trying to control your experience of the world, even if you end up failing in the end. So I figured, what the hell, and sat down and recorded this song without even knowing what I was doing. It’s a good song, and some of the singing is quite strong and expressive. But it doesn’t feel finished somehow. I wrote the song so quickly that it seems too simple, too naked. It seems to lack depth. I’m not sure whether I should add more parts to make it more complex? Or maybe I’m just trying to hide the vulnerability that is there . . . ”

Little Scream – “Guyegaros” [3:52]

“This is the original version (recorded through a Skype microphone) of a song that will be on my forthcoming album (albeit in a more professional and produced way! this one here is the original sketch). It was inspired by this story.”