A Tale of Crescendo ~ Chapters 1 & 2: The Arrival; The Nethermore
- Bill Kurzenberger
Incense Myrrh & Gold and Jingle Bells by Bhopal’s Flowers – Holiday Singles
Incense Myrrh & Gold and Jingle Bells by Bhopal’s Flowers – Holiday Singles
Happy Holidays from Psychedelic Scene in your preferred manner and tradition of celebrating them!
Hailing good tidings from the Quebec province of Canada, Montreal’s eclectic psych group Bhopal’s Flowers have recorded festive renditions of holiday singles in the form of “Incense Myrrh & Gold” and “Jingle Bells.”
The pair of cheery songs are newly released on 7″ vinyl by the Snowflakes Christmas Singles Club as part of their annual compilation, which for 2025 includes festive singles by Bhopal’s, Jeanines, Silverbiplanes, and La Nouvella Musique.
For their part, Bhopal’s Flowers have conceived a polar opposite pair of sunny and snowy Christmas-flavored songs to commemorate Santa Claus (or interchangeably Sinterklaas, Père Noël, Babbo Natale, Dun Che Lao Ren & various names depending on location) soaring in his sleigh from east to west to drop this musical delight into psychedelic music fans’ stockings.
Bhopal's Flowers - Incense Myrrh & Gold
Inspired by and written about the middle-eastern Magi from two centuries past, “Incense Myrrh & Gold” is a new original song written and performed by the Canadian band of multi-instrumentalists. With a sunny mixture of sitar, rhythm section and Farfisa or Vox electonic organ, it combines Golden Age psychedelia and Eastern European dance-pop with musical elements from the Levant and the Magi’s origins in the Far East.
Thematically, Lionel Pezzano and the group have plentiful familiar context for glorious musical inspiration about a newborn infant who is the alpha in their particular world. On Bhopal Flowers’ 2022 release Joy Of The 4th, the bandleader’s baby was not only the album’s inspiration but its lyrical protagonist as well. With references to bringing their “little son in a brand new world” and themes of doting new parents’ exaltation throughout, Joy Of The 4th is both a relatable musical precedent and natural successor to the divinely inspired “Incense, Myrrh & Gold.”
Bhopal's Flowers
Led by Lionel Pezzano their primary songwriter and singer, his assortment of esoteric instruments used on the recording session includes a Persian târ, sitar and tanpura, along with the more conventional percussion, keyboards, and six- and twelve-string guitars.
Capably accompanying Pezzano are Christophe Cinq who plays a sitar as well, bassist Jonathan St Laurent, drummer Eric Lamothe and backing vocalist Blandine Pezzano-Miart. Naturally, it wouldn’t be a Bhopal’s Flowers release without the inclusion of centuries-old stringed instruments.
Foremost in the spotlight is the sitar, no stranger to psych-rock fans and recordings as a musical staple in the late 1960s thanks to Ravi Shankar and George Harrison. With its origins in ancient Persia, its predecessor the setar was originally a three-stringed lute with a fourth string added centuries later. For these particular recording sessions at Mandragore and Raccoon Studios circa 2025 C.E., Pezzano also enlisted a far less recognizable Middle-Eastern lute.
Persian Târ - Iranian chahartar 4-stringed lute
The Persian Târ used on “Incense Myrrh & Gold” has similar origins in present-day Iran, also a four-stringed lute but with a far longer neck and range. Also known as a charhartar or chartar, the târ and its multi-stringed varieties including the six-stringed shashtar take their names from the Persian words for the corresponding Arabic number of strings.
Bhopal's Flowers
As a bonus for westernized Christmas music fans, Kris Kringle carries a more conventional Bhopal’s Flowers cover of “Jingle Bells” on the B-side of the 7″ vinyl single. Directly referential of The Beatles, Bhopal’s rendition of this Yuletide classic is presented as if the 1968 The Beatles’ Christmas Records had the same unconventional kaleidoscopic approach as the Fab Four had applied on The White Album that same year.
While the pair of holiday songs vary wildly from each other with wintery Western and sunny Eastern songwriting mentalities, together they present a festive globe-trotting adventure for Christmas music-lovers and psychedelic rock aficionados alike.
Bhopal’s Flowers “Incense Myrrh & Gold” and “Jingle Bells” are available on the group’s Bandcamp page
Happy Holidays
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