Joe Theobald, aka DJ Captain Wormhole, Looks at all things vinyl 

IT’S still the most wonderful time of the year and this is still a music column so here are my top three festive riddims, the joints I like to spin whilst the chestnuts are roasting and the Nakotami Plaza is burning.

This is the official Captain Wormhole-approved soundtrack to the Lord Jesus’s birthday, guaranteed to set the tone for a delightful day of presents, food, booze, television and domestic angst.

 The Start Of Your Ending (41st Side), Mobb Deep If ever a song could, nay should be likened to a cosy cable-knit Christmas jumper it’s this raw red-nosed joint. There simply is no other tune in the yuletide songbook that makes me feel as warm and festive as this. It’s widely known that Havoc recorded the opening chimes on an ill-fated tour of Lapland the year before and that line about black tims never fails to slay me like the 15th Bailey, for I too dreamt of a pair of black Timberlands nestled below the tree on a cold Dec’ 24th back in ‘96.

Poppa Large, Ultramagnetic MC’s When Kool Keith aka Dr. Octagon aka Black Elvis aka Keith Thornton first proposed the idea of a song about the big guy up North all those other Ultramagnetic MC’s must have convulsed in hysterics and begged ol’ Crazy Lou to pass the blunt. Little did they know that Poppa Large, the thinly veiled ode to St Nick, would be the groups own greatest gift to all the children across the world. More than 30 million copies of the 12 were dropped down chimneys by the real Poppa Large that Christmas.

They Reminisce Over You, Pete Rock & CL Smooth Cliché, obvious, ubiquitous, but it just wouldn’t be a Christmas music list without this track, a near perfect specimen of the form. Corey and Pete reminded us it’s Mum and Dad who are the real heroes on Christmas in this modern day carol of paternal warmth.

Unconventionally for a Christmas song, it was released in April of ‘92, perhaps a nod to contemporary theological research which identifies the December 25 as a date of convenience rather than accuracy.

The Holy Roman Empire merely cashed in on pre-existing pagan rituals celebrating the return of the sun. I digress, the point is its parents who buy most of the presents, not a fat man in a red suit or a bearded bohemian carpenter with regenerative capabilities.