Olly The Octopus Christmas Single

Folk troubadour and political commentator Olly The Octopus is doing something a little different this Christmas, with the unveiling of his debut single 'A Call To Arms For Hippies', released next Monday 14th December through Kind Canyon Records. The track will be released as a charity single in aid of MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians), just in time to compete with the eye-roll worthy X-Factor finalists in the Christmas charts.

Olly is best known for his adventurous musical antics infiltrating everywhere from London's Scientology HQ to one of Boris Johnson's Mayoral Assembly in Bromley. All of his antics have been captured and indexed on his YouTube channel, viewable by clicking here.

'A Call To Arms For Hippies' is fantastic. Equal parts talent, humour and originality, this debut single shows yet another brilliant section of London nu-folk goodness. Having previously produced releases by Emmy The Great and Stars Of Sunday League, it's no surprise that this is one of the most defiantly creative singles of 2009.

The single is available to pre-order over at www.eardepartment.com and will be available to buy both there and on iTunes from next Monday 14th December. You can listen to the track and see the video for it below.

Laura Marling & Johnny Flynn

It's been a good long time since I posted anything on The Comment Tree. Apologies for this - my hectic lifestyle has gotten that much more hectic this year! Rest assured, however, that 2010 will see many more posts containing many more brilliant artists...

To kickstart the process here in 2009, however, I have a couple of massively exciting things to share with you. Firstly, we have a brand new Christmas single from the beautiful Laura Marling, and you can listen to it here. The song is called 'Goodbye England (Covered In Snow)' and will sit well amongst anyone's collection of Marling songs. It's this fine young lady at her very best, doing what she does best, and it's wonderful. Take a listen, and make sure you buy a copy next Monday 14th December - even if only to keep those dreadful X-Factor types away from the Christmas Number #1 spot...



And in addition to Ms. Marling coming back onto the scene, the lovely Johnny Flynn has just released the brilliant follow up to his debut album 'A Larum'. This follow up comes in the form of the Sweet William EP, a gorgeous 4-track offering that will capture your heart and cause you to inadvertendly hum at the bus stop until the end of week. And after. For a limited time only, you can listen to and download for free the track 'Drum' from the new EP by clicking here.