“The holidays are all about memories, the warmth and the moments we just want to hold on to. ‘Sugar Cookies’ by Aaron Thompson is a very good seasonal release that really hits that sweet spot between the old and the new. It’s a very refreshing record.”
Not every Christmas song has to have the sleigh bells, the familiar Christmas tunes and all the standard fare. “Sugar Cookies” is a very different proposition from that point of view, a song by Sacramento singer-songwriter and producer Aaron Thompson which combines downtempo R&B, neo-soul and some very avant-garde soul into a sound that is warm, very intimate and utterly unorthodox. It’s a seasonal release and it’s a song about the emotional side of Christmas, acknowledging that the season can be a time of great joy but also a time when you’re reminded of all the people, places and things you’ve lost.
Right at the heart of the song is a sense of bittersweet nostalgia. It’s all to do with the emotions that come up at Christmas time, particularly the feeling of homesickness and the desire to go back to the people and the things that made us who we are. The title is all about something that’s very familiar and very comforting. The song goes beyond the sweetness of the festive season though. It’s about the way memories can be both a joy and a source of sadness, especially when the present is so different from the past. It doesn’t present Christmas as a perfectly happy picture. It allows space for the more melancholy feelings. The musical arrangement is where “Sugar Cookies” really comes into its own. It’s all warm Rhodes electric piano, big bass and some lovely nylon string guitar licks which give it its character. There’s a very contemporary R&B feel from the 808s which underpin it all. The production is very dreamy and unassuming, the various elements just sitting together quite nicely without it ever feeling like it’s too much. Thompson plays with his falsetto quite a bit and the lead vocal is very intimate, with a whole host of layered background harmonies. That vocal approach is what gives the song such a soft, personal feel and it’s that which really conveys the sense of yearning at the heart of the song. The decision to eschew the usual Christmas sounds works to the track’s advantage. Rather than go for the standard festive fare, Thompson has created a seasonal feel through groove, atmosphere and vocal delivery. It’s a very comfortable blend of Christmas music and contemporary soul and is a genuinely interesting alternative to the standard Christmas playlist. It’s the seasonal feel that’s there that’s the appeal, combined with an arrangement that is very much of the modern day.
The recording process also speaks to Thompson’s approach in both the independent and collaborative realms. It was recorded over four months in his own home studio in Sacramento, CA. The recording brought together musicians from all over the world: Robbie Malone from Ireland, Esteban Frontera from Argentina and Mart Evans from Nashville, TN. The distance was obviously there, but the performances were all part of the same creative process and all contributed to the final piece. It’s a very good example of how you can have an independent home studio and still have an international collaboration, whilst keeping it very much a personal thing. Thompson’s broader output is in the realms of Americana, folk-rock, roots, soul and contemporary R&B. Through his own studio and Modern Feelings Music he’s very much about real performances, real musicianship and the human connections that are made in the course of the making of a record. “Sugar Cookies” is another facet of that same creative personality, a record that’s very much about finding a particular sound and building a song around that particular feeling. “Sugar Cookies” is a very different take on the Christmas season. It acknowledges that Christmas can be a joyous, complicated, nostalgic and beautiful thing at the same time. It’s a very warm track with Aaron Thompson’s falsetto, some very nice backing vocals and a very relaxed neo-soul kind of production. It’s a very considered track that really does seem to be less about the traditional aspects of the season and more about the emotion. A lovely reminder that some of the best Christmas memories aren’t necessarily the happiest ones, but they’re still ones you can cherish.
English