TARJA - from Spirits and Ghosts (score for a dark Christmas)

“When you are saying the word Christmas what comes to mind is the jingle bells, the happiness, the presents and Santa. I was born in Finland and Christmas is seen there as something very quiet and peaceful and magical sort of, mysterious even and our Christmas traditions are important to us.”

Eleven years after her first Christmas album ‘Henkäys Ikuisuudesta’ Tarja brings us ‘from Spirits and Ghosts (Score for a dark Christmas), an album she collaborated on and recorded in the Caribbean on the island of Antigua whilst also penning a brand new song ‘Together.’ “Ever since the beginning of the album production I said I wanted to write one song for this album, because all the rest are internationally known. My song definitely is not a happy Christmas carol, but instead it’s talking about the darker side of Christmas with the lonely people and dark experiences we’ve had”.

This represents a selection of classic and popular hymns and songs, some of which are centuries old but widely known and popular throughout all of Christendom, but with Tarja adding her own dark slant to them that makes them very, very different and surprisingly surreal.

The first release to her admiring fans is the Christian hymn ‘O Come O Come, Emmanuel’ – a haunting, orchestral version first noted in popular culture in its original Latin as ‘Veni, Veni, Emmanuel’ in Germany in 1710 and later translated in 1861. “Perhaps my favourite song (on the album). I really like that very much and cannot wait to get to perform it live, even though it’s not a song where I can show off my vocals, but it’s such an emotional song. My daughter has the same feelings about that song.” The video to accompany this release features an almost unrecognisable Tarja in stunning make-up as she gets to explore her fantasy characters, continuing the themes from her Rock albums once again. The light side, almost white queen if you like, as she alludes to it, and the one that brings you the shadows and the dark. The visuals have been captured by renowned Belgian Rock photographer Tim Tronckoe in a series of promotional photographs that also adorn the vinyl, CD and digital releases.



As ‘O Come O Come, Emmanuel’ features Tarja singing Latin, ‘O Tannenbaum’ written by the Leipzig organist, teacher and composer Ernst Anschütz in 1824 based on a 16th Century Silesian folk song by Melchior Franck features Tarja singing in perfect German – “I was recording my vocals in Antigua together with my friend (German musician, song writer and composer) Torsten Stenzel. He was laughing and said I sound like old proper German while I was singing this song. No one speaks that way in Germany anymore apparently! That was the greatest compliment I’ve heard to be honest. The reason I still can speak and sing a bit in German comes from my classical singing education with many years of living and learning in Germany.”



Undoubtedly one of the most famous songs Tarja has covered on this album, and arguably the oldest dating back to the medieval period, is ‘Pie Jesu’, specifically the Andrew Lloyd Webber version popularised by Sarah Brightman. Tarja’s vocals have been noticeably double tracked. “I sang many years as a mezzo soprano during my university studies before reaching the soprano range and nowadays I don’t get to sing lower songs as a lyrical soprano much, but I have maintained this lower register within the Rock music I do. I have been able to keep it alive. Pie Jesu is eerily low if you sing it in octaves. This was a big challenge for me. Tim Palmer (Pearl Jam, U2, Ozzy Osbourne, Robert Plant etc), who mixed the entire album, made the low vocals sound like lead vocals and that was a huge surprise to me, because you never get to hear this song like this. It’s unbelievable how Tim always makes me sound brilliant.”

‘Amazing Grace’ is also undoubtedly a universally popular and recognised song that Tarja covers on this album, building from an almost a capella with the lyrics published in 1779 by English poet and clergyman John Newton. “I love the instrumental orchestral part towards the end. I wanted to keep the song as orchestral and peaceful as possible. Everybody knows ‘Amazing Grace.’



One of the more surprising and therefore more difficult Christmas songs that Tarja has covered is the Spanish speaking world’s ‘Feliz Navidad’ – the original is the macaronic version by Puerto Rican singer José Feliciano and for Tarja to achieve a darker interpretation was extremely difficult. “I knew that with this song I’ll face a challenge, but I also knew that with Jim Dooley (American film score composer) we could make it completely different than the original one. We definitely needed a completely new approach to the song. It was not an easy job to make it sound dark, but with Jim’s amazing talent, we managed it.”

Also featured on this album are ‘We Three Kings’, ‘Deck The Halls’, ‘Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas’, ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen’, ‘What Child Is This’ and ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas.’ All will be universally known, but none will have had the inimitable and unique dark interpretation that Tarja delivers on each and every one.

“I am very proud of my 5 years old daughter that sang with me in ‘Deck The Halls’ making it very spooky. She made her record debut and she nailed it in two takes, like a real pro. I like in particular the switch from Major to Minor key in this one.”



“With this album I wanted to approach, musically, the cinematographic sound. Movie scores still inspire me a lot these days. Jim Dooley understood my approach because we have a long history of working together. He has done all the orchestra and choir arrangements for my rock records. He’s super talented and very easy to work with. I had for a long time wanted to make a score kind of an album with him, but never until now, found time for it. This was a great opportunity for us and made me very happy.”