Super Hi-Fi’s Yule Analog Vol. II wraps Christmas in Dub Last year’s Yule Analog Vol. 1- Super Hi-Fi’s irreverently creative take on the holiday songbook- convinced more than a few skeptical listeners that the phrase “reggae Christmas album” didn’t have to conjure images of fake dreadlocks and saccharine holiday sing-alongs. This year, the trombone-heavy quintet is back with Yule Analog Vol. II, a wild ride through six more holiday nuggets and associated remixes that is if anything even more bombastic and appealing than its predecessor. Once again recorded onto analog tape and then mixed by NYC-based dub producer Prince Polo with liberal use of vintage reverb and tape delay units, Yule Analog Vol. II calls to mind classic Jamaican-style dub from the likes of King Tubby and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry while keeping its feet planted firmly in the holiday present. Led by bassist and bandleader Ezra Gale, Super Hi-Fi’s core lineup includes trombonist Rick Parker, guitarist Jon Lipscomb and drummer Madhu Siddappa. But the group this time has invited some friends along to spice things up, chief among them trombone legend Curtis Fowlkes (Lounge Lizards, Bill Frisell, Charlie Hunter), who lends his inimitable sound to the entire album. Also joining the choir is saxophonist/organist Mitch Marcus (Donavan, Dean Ween Group, and Gale’s former bandmate in Aphrodesia), as well as Adrian Hartley and Alex Castle, Gale’s bandmates in the NY-based rare groove band The Get it, who sing on the album’s lone original- the hilarious novelty-style ska tune “Please Santa Bring Me An Echoplex.” Highlights abound- Fowlkes’ jaw-dropping solo on “Silent Night”; a version of “What Child Is This?” that tips its cap to John Coltrane’s version of “Greensleeves” and provides a launch pad for a searing, psychedelic solo from Lipscomb; an altogether swanky take on “The Christmas Song” (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire) that substitutes Marcus’ tenor sax for Nat King Cole’s classic vocal. Like Volume I, Yule Analog Vol. II stays true to the spirit of these enduring melodies while finding new inspiration in them, an approach that Gale, who again arranged all the tunes on the album, says was the point all along. Where does a Jewish New Yorker get the idea to make a dub Christmas album? “I really have no idea!” says Gale, laughing. “Maybe it’s because I don’t have a relationship with these songs in a religious context, and I just hear them as music. But I really don’t know, we came up with the idea of doing this last year and I took on arranging everything as a challenge- this year it just seemed like there were more songs we wanted to try with this approach.” A fixture in the fertile and creative Brooklyn music scene since 2010, Super Hi-Fi has shared stages at New York venues like Brooklyn Bowl, the Mercury Lounge and Zebulon with bands ranging from Rubblebucket to Beats Antique and John Brown's Body. Their critically-acclaimed 2012 full-length on Electric Cowbell Records, Dub To the Bone, was cited as the best reggae album of the year by the New York Music Daily, and the group has also released two 45’s on Electric Cowbell and recent split 7” on Peace and Rhythm Records with Ithaca, NY’s Big Mean Sound Machine. .