The Christmas Demos Album

It began with a simple, slightly mischievous idea: to write Christmas lyrics that look unflinchingly at the shadows cast by the holiday season—loneliness, toxic family dynamics, relentless consumerism draining the planet’s resources, and the quiet despair of homelessness.

From that spark grew four texts: “I Dreamed of a Carol” (a dreamer’s escape and the weight of unrealistic holiday expectations), “Silent Bells” (a final Christmas on a doomed Earth), “Christmas in Hell” (rituals drained of meaning in a suffocating family environment), and “Il freddo dell’asfalto” (Christmas Eve in the city as seen through the eyes of someone living on the street).

Armed with the usual digital tools and a stubborn sense of curiosity, I painstakingly crafted six demo tracks—three of them built around completely different musical settings of “Christmas in Hell.” Wanting to stretch my musical boundaries, I shared the material with my friends and fellow musicians Phaneronaut and Zinkl, whose contributions eventually became the charity album “Christmas 2024,” released in December that year.

You can find the album on Bandcamp and your favorite streaming service (click to open smartlink).

This exclusive FMA edition brings together my original demos, exactly as they sounded before I passed them on. Some echo the later remixes and reworks by Phaneronaut and Zinkl, others sit surprisingly close to the final versions. Taken together, they form a small, slightly off-kilter collection of holiday-themed songs that I’m delighted to share here.

Salvatore Pichireddu

Salvatore Pichireddu