Joining us for this Indie Rock Hit Parade holiday party is a trio of friends who have made distinctive sounds together for decades. IRHP’s history with Luna’s Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips stretches all the way back to the show’s first year, when the duo performed a set of songs from Dean’s solo debut in one of our first in-studio sessions. Wareham and Phillips returned in 2022, presenting new material, deep cuts, and covers. But if the show’s relationship with this celebrated couple is long, Dean and Britta’s partnership with producer Peter “Sonic Boom” Kember is even longer. Kember first gained attention as one half of the pioneering British duo Spacemen 3, and launched a solo career as both artist and producer in the late ’80s. A mutual admiration between Wareham, Phillips, and Kember led to 2003’s Sonic Souvenirs, a remix of Dean & Britta’s debut, L’Avventura. As Wareham and Phillips continued with Luna, Kember’s list of production credits grew to include albums by MGMT, Beach House, and Panda Bear. As happens to so many of us during the holidays, the trio reconnected and just this year released their first shared-credit collaboration, A Peace of Us.

As a fan not only of this trio’s music but holiday music in general, I could not have been more excited to chat with Wareham, Phillips, and Kember about A Peace of Us. In our conversation you’ll hear how Phillips’ attitude towards Christmas music has changed over the years, why Wareham decided to include a cover of “Snow is Falling in Manhattan” as a tribute to his late friend David Berman, and the surprising album that Kember forever associates with holiday time.

Listen to Dean & Britta and Sonic Boom on the Indie Rock Hit Parade

Pip Blom – “Keep It Together” (Indie Rock Hit Parade Live Sessions)