Pitchfork

Happy Halloween, kids! What better way to celebrate than with 42 Christmas songs? That's right, thanks to the folks at Asthmatic Kitty, Sufjan Stevens' previously reported Songs for Christmas box set is now streaming in its entirety on the AK website. All five discs of it. So while you're slipping into that George W. Bush mask or that sexy maid negligee this evening, groove to such holiday favorites as "Silent Night", "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!", and, um, "Did I Make You Cry on Christmas Day? (Well, You Deserved It!)".

Also, Songs for Christmas is now available for pre-order, with a shipping date of November 14. It arrives on store shelves on November 21--just in time for Thanksgiving. The perks of waiting for the physical product are manifold, as the five-disc set comes with stickers, an essay by Rick Moody, a music video and a comic book by Tom Eaton, a "Christmas Songbook with lyric sheets and chord charts," and, last but not least, the "Official Original Christmas Family Portrait of Santa Sufjan painted by Jacques Bredy."

Asthmatic Kitty is in a very generous mood today, and their cup runneth over with Suf-goodies. In addition to the box set streams, AK has posted a series of horror film reviews by Mr. Stevens himself, which reveal the man to be quite the connoisseur.

"I've watched so much gore that modern horror films look farcical," Sufjan explains. "I'm no longer a fan of the teenage slasher. It's not scary anymore. It's just messy and tedious."

Damn! So much for the whole mild-mannered indie-folk pansy reputation.

For Sufjan's thoughts on Night of the Living Dead, Decasia, Eraserhead, Hell House, Glen or Glenda?, and, yes, An Inconvenient Truth (scariest movie of all time!!!), click here.

Stevens' list is part of Asthmatic Kitty's growing "sidebar" section of their website, in which artists, label employees, and friends share their thoughts on a variety of topics. In addition to the Sufjan horror-fest, there's a Castanets tour diary, Half-Handed Cloud's visit to a museum exhibit about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, Shapes and Sizes' thoughts on Sebadoh, World Series game recaps, album reviews, and much more.