Here’s my official press release for the new Louis Eliot and The Embers single – 25th of the 12th.
It’s the only Christmas record you have to own this year. Available now to download from iTunes – the perfect pressie.

Louis Eliot & The Embers – Keeping it rural this Christmas
New single – 25th of the 12th

“Louis Eliot’s sharp lyricism and easy song writing serves him well” NME
“True pop genius” The Times

‘Tis the season when the pop charts are decorated with X(mas) Factor fluff and plastic confectionary.
But, fear not, because Louis Eliot and The Embers are keeping it real and rural this Christmas with the release of their new single 25th of the 12th – available now on iTunes.
Think The Byrds putting their jangle to Kirsty McColl, or Sir John Betjeman on lyric duties for The Faces. (“Tupperware skies over slate and granite towns. Meet me down by the early English church, the frozen ground, the silent silver birch…”)
Add a cracker of a chorus that makes you feel like you got just what you always wanted, and there you have it – an irresistible slice of pastoral steam-powered pop to warm your winter spirits.

On the wonderful new Shirley Bassey album The Performance there's a song written by David Arnold and Don Black that sounds like the best Bond song that never was.

No Good About Goodbye is one of those big, dramatic, camp ballads with sweeping strings, bolshy brass and our Shirl belting out the words in??her own inimitable style.

The song would have sounded great over the top of the opening credits of the last Bond blockbuster Quantum of Solace – this Youtube clip shows what could've been:

So much more effective than Jack White & Alicia Keys' pitiful attempt, Another Way To Die, don't you agree? Hell, the song even features the lyric 'quantum'.

According to a story on Bond fansite www.mi6.co.uk, the Bassey??song was not in fact a rejected track from Quantum of Solace?? (see here).

Apart from the opening string line, there was no material from the movie soundtrack. Only a few lines of the song were written and it was far from complete by the time Jack White and Alicia Keys were chosen to perform Another Way To Die, said Arnold, speaking to MI6.co.uk.

When he was asked to produce Bassey's new album, Arnold teamed up with Don Black to finish the song for her specifically.

Still, it just goes to show that when it comes to Bond, nobody does it better than Bassey.

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