Review and More

Our Review

Gipp Forster takes listeners back to a magical time, a time when radio plays created fantasy worlds with voices and sound effects. Inside these worlds, anything is possible, where ordinary people are angels and where the most unlikely outcomes become possible. Almost as if William Blake had done radio.

His technique is so well-polished I often want to like these stories in spite of myself. My emotions are pretty easily manipulated, so much so that the most maudlin and exploitive McDonalds commercial can draw a teary response from my eyes. So, Forster's voice, when backed by stringed instruments, can usually achieve the intended response. My problem is that these are mostly red state stories whose premises and "facts" are so over the top that they would not seem believable even by the faithful, except possibly on Christmas Eve. His stories address a need for blessed assurance that cannot be met by stories whose outcomes could actually occur in the world we live in.

In a way, it is Forster's successful use of vocal technique, emotion-inspiring arrangements, along with fantastical stories and themes, that limit the appeal of Gipp Forster's Christmas, Volume 2. Like my candied pears, these stories are so sweet that they can only be experienced in small doses. So much so that the appropriate setting for listening to this is limited to the few days directly preceding Christmas, in the car on the way to church, by children under 12.

--Richard Banks
(Reviewed in 2006)

More

From the liner notes:

All stories written and narrated by Gipp Forster
Original music and lyrics composed by Dale Baglo (SOCAN)
Choir: Tamsyn Curtis, Stephie Curtis, Spencer Needham, Jon Baglo, Luke Witt
Somebody's Dreams - vocal by Duncan Meiklejohn
It Wouldn't Be Christmas - lead vocal: Avalon McLean

Produced by Dale Baglo
Recorded at Dale Baglo Broadcast Inc.

Gipp Forster

Gipp Forster's Christmas,
Volume 2

Artist site

Track List