Album: Scala and Kolacny Bros, December (Pias)

Christmas songs tend to be either brash and tinselly or calm and still. This collection falls as delicately and lightly as snow into the latter category.

Fourteen alternative seasonal tunes from, among others, Joni Mitchell, Coldplay and the Pretenders sensitively remoulded into choral pieces for a Belgian female choir. It's an often enchanting effort if you have leanings towards the prettily melancholic and feel like a change from more trad fare.