The Underground of Happiness: January 2012

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Frankie Rose - Interstellar (Memphis Industries)

This is the second album from Miss Frankie Rose, former drummer to the stars (both Vivian and Dum Dum Girls, as well as Crystal Stilts), who struck out magnificently with The Outs in 2010. If you’re expecting more of the same this time around (surf guitars, reverb, shoegaze), then for the most part you’d be wrong. Minus band, Frankie has retained a certain dreamy, enigmatic quality but the musical arrangements are radically different, with synths predominant.

So there are the lovely synth-pop stylings of Gospel/Grace and Daylight sky (both overlaid with chiming C86 guitars, one of a few nods back to the previous album). That latter song also has more than a hint of ambient soundscapes about it, with a bubbling, gurgling bass running through – an atmosphere repeated on the beautiful Had we had it, with its ecstatic, twinkling chorus – which, along with the epic vocal treatments, would tend to remind you a little of the euphoric melancholy of Apparat. Apples for the sun is a cosmic chill-out, built around an insinuating keyboard loop, like a slowed-down techno workout, complete with false fade.

The songwriting (and singing) has a wistful, stargazing quality, in keeping with the album title, as on Pair of wings – “perched above the city on a pair of power lines”. Elsewhere there is moondust, weightlessness, walking on clouds and two suns noticed passing by. The overall effect is of an 80’s English indie band marooned on a space station and communicating home via hushed, nostalgic murmurings of love, set among celestial choirs; occasionally, the ambient haze clears just enough to make out the remembered pitter-patter backbeats and surf guitar twang. Beguiling is the only word for it.

*This is the first single from the album, and more or less the only track available online for now. Although lovely, it doesn't exactly convey the full drift of the album. But I'll post up more links as soon as they come on stream...the album's out in March.

Friday, January 27, 2012

Markus Mehr, new album

Just time for a quick mention of new music from friend to the show Markus Mehr, from Augsburg in Germany. A couple of years ago, he brought out a really beautiful album of ambient instrumentals, Lava, on the ever wonderful Hidden Shoal label, embroidered with his distinctive guitar drone designs. At the time, he spoke to me on the phone from Germany - that's an interview you can find over there on the right of the page (that's right, I'm not going to link it, don't be lazy, it's just over there...).

The new material is a 2-track album called In, the first part of an ambitious-sounding triptych, with On and Off to follow later this year. Personally, I can't wait. Check out a couple of excerpts from In down here, it's therapeutic.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Playlist 205 - Jan 24 2012

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Matthew Bourne - Montauk Variations (The Leaf Label)

I'm no jazz afficionado. I probably know as much about jazz as the average pop music fan. Which is why I'd previously only been aware of the pianist Matthew Bourne at arm's length, through references in regular mailings from the Leaf record label. Now, Leaf are releasing what is apparently his first ever solo studio album, and his first outing with the label. From what I read about Bourne, it sounds like he doesn't wear the jazz tag easily; he's been a serial collaborator over the last decade - piano trios, free jazz/noise groups and even a project seeking out broken pianos, Songs from a lost piano (which sounds intriguing and I must check it out this minute).

I've no intention of attempting anything like a review of this album. I'm not qualified and I hate it when people wander into territory where they're clearly out of their depth. However, there is an obvious "way in" for me here - a version of the Charlie Chaplin tune Smile, which originally appeared with the 1936 film Modern Times. Here's Chaplin's original tune, embellished with unashamed sentimentality, complete with gushing orchestral arrangement.

And this is what Bourne does with it, a kind of deconstructed, slowed-down cousin of the original. The pieces are put back together more poignantly, if anything, with great emotion in the minor shadings and tentative variations in tempo. He mentions in the sleevenotes that he thought at one time the album was about his own "personal unquietness, solitude and heartbreak", but then goes on to discount this theory. There's certainly plenty of evidence in Smile to back it up.

That was filmed at Leeds College of Music before Christmas. Here are the other pieces filmed at that session, including one, Unloved, which hasn't been released anywhere and is the most gorgeous soundtrack to heartbreak you'll hear. There's also a John Zorn tribute, complete with elbows and all.

You'll find Smile here on soundcloud aswell, along with two other of the most straightforwardly beautiful and elegant pieces on the album, Infinitude again and Juliet, the latter featuring what you could only call a lachrymose cello.

For some reason, something about this album reminds me a bit of last year's Green and grey by Julia Kent, which consisted of solo cello, layered and looped, with some sparing field recordings. Something about the sombre mood, probably, but also the fact that someone with obvious training has opted to simplify and peel back their technique. In the process, I'd say Montauk Variations is a very modern album - chaotic, frenzied in places but ultimately leaving you with a feeling of solitude and romantic melancholy. My knowledge of jazz is limited, but as pop music goes, I love it.

Lots more info about Matthew Bourne on hos own website
http://matthewbourne.com/

Grimes Video and Live dates

We played some new music from Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, from Montreal on the show the other week. Genesis is her first release under the 4AD umbrella (and what an ample, pleasant, accommodating umbrella it is), ahead of a new album Visions later in the year. Her album on Lo Recordings, Halfaxa, made quite an impression around here last year (check the Best of 2011 Review here), and the new song is in a similar vein of murky electronica with jittery beats and ethereal, layered vocals - intriguing and fairly uncategorisable really. There's some video for the track from Yours Truly below. She plays a whole host of European dates in the summer, including at the Primavera Festival in Barcelona, Field Day in London and Forbidden Fruit in Dublin.

Yourstru.ly presents: Grimes "Genesis" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Monday, January 23, 2012

Hooded Fang on Full Time Hobby

Been enjoying listening to new Full Time Hobby signings Hooded Fang, from Toronto. They released their second album, Tosta Mista, on Daps Records in Canada last year, it'll be available this side of the Atlantic in March. FTH are giving away a free download of album track ESP through their website on this link

http://www.fulltimehobby.co.uk/home/hooded-fang/

or directly on soundcloud here.

Hooded Fang - ESP by fulltimehobby

It's like a jumpy 60's garage Nugget dug out of the archives, with a fantastic fuzz bass and unexpectedly (but brilliantly) smooth pop vocal. Below is another album track, the equally great Highway steam, which had me from the second the triumphant ascending trumpet line kicked in.

Check the rest of the album on soundcloud here, it's well worth your time.

http://soundcloud.com/hoodedfang/

Saturday, January 21, 2012

A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Half Moon Theatre Cork, live review

A Winged Victory for the Sullen played in Cork during the week - part of their still-proceeding European tour - a gig I'd been looking forward to with great anticipation for quite a while. If you've never heard the name before, there's some notes on the album on this link.

http://www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/09/winged-victory-for-sullen-winged.html

The gig turned out to be a memorable experience, one that will stay with me for some time, a bright, shining highlight of the last 12 months of music (which have been pretty memorable all round). Here's a review I wrote for Cork-based webzine Noise, which is reprinted in full from this link, with kind permission.

http://wearenoise.com/index.php/2012/01/a-winged-victory-for-the-sullen-half-moon-theatre-cork-jan-18th-2012/

The Half Moon Theatre (the radical wing of Cork Opera House) moonlights as an arthouse cinema these days, so no venue could be more appropriate, I thought, to house the first Irish performance of A Winged Victory for the Sullen. The duo, formed by pianist and composer Dustin O’Halloran and ex-Stars of the Lid founder Adam Wiltzie, released their self-titled debut last year on the Erased Tapes label and the melancholic, cinematic grandeur of its instrumentals swept it into many Best of 2011 lists, including my own.

Sleeping Dog, including Adam Wiltzie on guitar and keys, took the stage first. The rest of the line-up comprised piano/synth/guitar, drums and percussion (including, barefoot, ankle bracelet bells, a first on me). They played plaintiff folk songs with some interesting deep end synths/samples which had promise, but the overall effect was strangely lacklustre, a little too polite, even, something which seemed to be reflected by the muted audience reaction.

After a short intermission, the main event, O’Halloran and Wiltzie joined onstage by cello (the aforementioned ankle bell percussionist back again, still barefoot), violin and viola. Dustin O’Halloran did the introductions with a quick mention of his grandparents’ emigration from Ireland in a previous lifetime. Then the cinema screen behind the band suddenly lit up with a giant close-up of a moon, half in shadow, making its way slowly but irresistibly from wall to wall. The strings swayed into motion and as the notes gradually coalesced against the backdrop of this huge lunar landscape, the most spectacular opening to a gig I have seen in years had been achieved.

Over the next hour or so, the roughly 130 souls in the sold-out venue had the joy of the wonderfully expressive and delicate piano playing of O’Halloran (at times managing to conduct the strings aswell by standing, crouched at the instrument, using his head instead of a baton), contrasted with the great subterranean machine hum from Wiltzie’s bank of effects across the stage. Each ineffably gorgeous melody from their album was aired, each had the same unforced emotional pull of the studio recordings. My own favourite was the superbly titled Steep hills of Vicodin tears, an ambient-classical masterpiece featuring oscillating guitar drones, church organ and a straightforwardly beautiful 2-note string arrangement. The 12-minute A Symphony Pathetique was also glorious, not a second wasted, ending in a kind of gentle cosmic fizz of string saws. As an encore, they even managed to pull an audacious rabbit out of the hat in the shape of Arvo Part’s Fratres for strings – as coups de graces go, a pretty monumental one in my book.

I did have a couple of qualms about the gig. I was occasionally sorry for the applause between pieces (and it was generous and wholehearted), because of its effect of breaking the spell of the music. I wondered if an unbroken flow might have been better, but then again that might have changed the endearingly humble – I’d almost say indie - demeanour of the performance into a more buttoned-up, classical atmosphere. Which is far from where this music is located (did I mention the cellist was barefoot?). I also wondered, if this is cinematic music, what does it soundtrack? Space? The natural world? Consciousness? The backdrop (which moved on from the moon to other, apparently random, images) might have matched the mood of the music better.

However, when I say these were minor misgivings, I mean they were overwhelmingly outweighed by the majesty of the sounds. Lead by the magnetic O’Halloran, with Wiltzie a more reticent, enigmatic, bear-in-the-shadows presence, A Winged Victory for the Sullen lived up to their name and produced a compelling and completely uplifting performance full of emotion, and surely, one of the gigs of the year already.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Playlist 204 - Jan 17 2012

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 204
Tues Jan 17 2012
11.00am-12.00pm
(repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm)
UCC 98.3FM
listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/983fm
*listen back to this show here
https://rapidshare.com/files/3707911098/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_Jan_17_2012.m4a

Playlist
Josh T. Pearson - Woman, when I've raised hell (alternate version) (Best of 2011)
*d'load an interview with JTP from 2011 here:
http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/05/josh-t-pearson-interview.html

The Lost Brothers - The goodbye kid (playing Workman's Club, Dublin, Jan 27, on Certain Three Tour, w/ Katie Kim & Puzzle Muteson, plus other venues)
Frankie Rose - Know me
Milagres - Here to stay
Band of Clouds - No maps no compass
Charlotte Gainsbourg - Out of touch
A Winged Victory for the Sullen - Steep hills of Vicodin tears (Best of 2011) (playing Half Moon Theatre, Cork, Jan 18)
Tune-Yards - Doorstep (Best of 2011)
*d'load an interview with Merrill Garbus from 2010 here:
http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/03/tune-yards-interview.html

Neville Skelly - Poet & a dreamer (Best of 2011)
*d'load an interview with Neville from 2011 here:
http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/07/neville-skelly-poet-dreamer-setantapias.html

Field Music - A new town (playing King's College, London, Feb 24)
*d'load an interview with the Brewis brothers from 2010 here:
http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/11/field-music-2010-interview-new-music.html

Songs of Green Pheasant - Teen wolf
Matthew Bourne - Infinitude (Montauk Variations album launch, Cafe Oto, London, Feb 15)
The Byrds - She don't care about time

*next week's show will feature more music from Band of Clouds, also Phantom Limb, Peaking Lights and Mint Julep, among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Band of Clouds - Outside broadcast (Granny It's OK to Experiment)

Meet Waterford-based but Cork-born John Haggis, and an album made with friends (including one Katie Kim and Richard from House of Cosy Cushions) at his Granny It’s OK to Experiment studio in the south-east of Ireland during a period of recovery following an operation.

No maps no compass is a great wall of sound to start, with beautiful shoegazey vocals offset by a heavily filtered trumpet, and drumbeats tripping over themselves. So long Bitter Root Hill features a circling Spanish guitar figure, followed by a fantastic deep-sea rumble of a bass underneath a lost, echoing voice. The great silence of snow transforms a simple plucked banjo and spoken word recitation into a looping vocal refrain with cinematic backwash of uplifting and epic proportions. Another haunting male falsetto adorns the brooding closer Happy endings (tending to put one in mind of Luke Temple from Here We Go Magic a little).

Stitched throughout the album are bits of film dialogue, harmonicas, violins, birdsong, recorders, cellos, dulcimer and more. Juliette Binoche, Alan Lomax and WB Yeats all make appearances. The whole thing meanders hazily and very, very pleasantly with the ramshackle charm of a home recording, without sacrificing any of the affecting melodies or rich arrangements. With its endearing sense of adventure, this downtime project beats the shit out of most people’s uptime efforts.

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Field Music – A new town (Memphis Industries, single)

The Brewis brothers pick up from where they left off with 2010’s mini-epic double album (Measure), with this first single and tantalising taster from the upcoming Plumb. This tune takes a thread from its predecessor in the form of a twitchy, insinuating guitar riff and shuffling drumbeat, but distinguishes itself with some lovely prog stylings and the sound of gurgling water. Field music, as the man said.

*You'll have to take my word on the above as a listening link is not yet available, but here's the equally infectious (I keep thinking about) A new thing to tide you through.

Field Music - (I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing by memphisindustries

**Here tis now, glorious.

Playlist 203 - Jan 10 2012

Montauk Variations by Matthew Bourne

Twinklebox | Old Dreams by Emphemetry

Oliveray - Harmonics by erasedtapes

Slow Place Like Home - Coastal hubs for chivalry EP (self-released)

Donegal-based Keith Mannion brings us a set of diverse but finely balanced electronic (semi-) instrumentals. Opener Carte blanche somehow manages to combine a propulsive rhythm with a sunny, chill-out atmosphere, helped by children’s playground recordings. The title track takes a smoky, trumpet-lead jazz tune and cuts it into glitchy, hip hop pieces. We learned to tilt at windmills has something of Air about it, all synth power chords and wide open spaces. My own favourite is the post-kosmische hum and swell of The long and winding tide, culminating in a beautiful, heartfelt melody. Encouraging stuff from the Atlantic North-West corridor.

Coastal Hubs for Chivalry EP will be available for free download from the SPLH Bandcamp page from Monday, January 23rd

Friday, January 6, 2012

Emphemetry digital release

You might remember an artist called Emphemetry, consisting of Richard Birkin from Derby. He was responsible for a beautiful album in 2011 called A lullaby hum for tired streets, a kind of love poem to his home city - it featured in our Best of 2011 round-up. More detail on the album here.

He's announced new music now, one part of which is a soundtrack to a short film called Twinklebox , about the inner life/workings of a music box, made by Aaron Bradbury. There are two tracks involved in the digital release, the title track, a charming music box melody with piano support. The second, Old dreams, foregrounds the piano, with a lovely, close-miked, intimate atmosphere (in a style you might have come to associate with Nils Frahm), which adds an air of mystery to the busy melody. Listen here.

Twinklebox | Old Dreams by Emphemetry

And the film is available here, part one in a series of Music Box Chronicles.

Twinklebox from Aaron Bradbury on Vimeo.

There's more to Old dreams too. Birkin says -

My studio, where my piano is kept, is situated in a very old mill at Darley Abbey in Derby. There are crooked passages between the mill’s buildings, bits of machinery from dead industries, and strange empty structures with walls swelled by years. In the foggy none-days of mid-late winter this place has an uncanny resemblance to how I picture the shadowless walled town in the ‘end of the world’ scenario from Haruki Murakami’s novel Hard-boiled Wonderland & The End Of The World. I started bringing the book with me to recording sessions, and taking it to the ghostly pub around the corner. With every chapter I could point to a place or think of a person in the world around me here that fit the words perfectly.

Birkin plans to make Old dreams the first of a series of piano and string pieces based on the novel, to be released as an EP later this year. Which is fascinating and we await developments with interest.

Out on Time Travel Opps on Jan 16th and on emphemetry.bandcamp.com.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Playlist 202 - Jan 3 2012

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 202
Tues Jan 3 2012
11.00am-12.00pm
(repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm)
UCC 98.3FM
listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/983fm
*listen back to this show here
https://rapidshare.com/files/387608023/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_Jan_3_2012.m4a

Playlist
Phantom Limb - The pines
Peaking Lights - Tiger eyes (Laid back) Adrian Sherwood/On U Sound remix)
The Last Sound - Only the lonley know the glow is failing (Best of 2011)
Julia Kent - Tithonos (Best of 2011)
AU - Solid gold
A Winged Victory for the Sullen - A Symphony Pathetique (Montauk in February remix) (playing Half Moon Theatre, Cork, Jan 18)
Flare Acoustic Arts League - Hideous ethnic stereotype
Atlas Sound - Mona Lisa
Trailer Trash Tracys - Candy girl
Penny & the Quarters - You and me (from the sound track of the film Blue Valentine) (Best of 2011)
William D. Drake - Wholly holey (Best of 2011)
Saso - Carousel
Katherine Blake - Maiden of the mountai deep
Jean-Claude Vannier - Le ballet des accoucheuses (Best of 2011)
The Doomed Bird of Providence - The bell of the Jardines

*next week's show will feature music from Chairlift, AU and Bruce Haack, plus we continue a review of the Best of 2011 with Metronomy, Connan Mockasin, Dark Captain and Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Best of 2011 Round-up

Happy New Year. Just a quick hello to land you with a list of 46* (edit - make it 48) albums that did the rounds many times in here in the past year. Another great year for pop music, I think you'll agree. A couple of other miscellaneous highlights underneath. I'm not bothering with lots of links and pictures and videos in this post - that's what the rest of the blog is for, go digging and you'll find. Most, if not all, of the list have been represented in these pages over the last year. And I might also mention that interviews with Crystal Stilts, Efterklang, (The) Caseworker, Hotels, Josh T. Pearson and Neville Skelly from the year gone by are also over there on the right hand side of the page. I may well have left a few people out, and there were a few borderline cases - if anyone has any particular beef with me on what's below, give me a shout. I'm all on for, like, engagement. Say no more.

(I'm making one exception, I can't get enough of this)

The Last Sound: Only the Lonely Know the Glow is Failing from Osaka Records on Vimeo.

Albums
St Vincent – Strange mercy (4AD)
Tune-Yards – whokill (4AD)
North Sea Radio Orchestra – I a moon (The Household Mark)
William D. Drake – Rising of the lights (Onomatopoeia Records)
The Doomed Bird of Providence – Will ever pray (Front & Follow)
Bill Ryder-Jones – If… (Double 6)
The Phoenix Foundation – Buffalo (Memphis Industries)
The Go! Team – Rolling blackouts (Memphis Industries)
Dutch Uncles – Cadenza (Memphis Industries)
Essie Jain – Until the light of morning (Light of Morning)
Julianna Barwick – The magic place (Asthmatic Kitty)
John Stammers – John Stammers (Wonderful Sound)
Gablé – Cute horse cut (LoAF)
Josh T. Pearson – The last of the country gentlemen (Mute)
Grimes – Halfaxa (Lo Recordings)
Nils Frahm & Anne Muller - 7 fingers (Erased Tapes)
Emphemetry - A lullaby hum for tired streets (Time Travel Opps)
Hotels - On the casino floor (Hidden Shoal)
Toro y Moi - Underneath the pine (Carpark)
Julia Kent - Green and grey (Tin Angel Records)
Left with Pictures - In time (Organ Grinder Records)
Damon & Naomi - False beats and true hearts (Broken Horse)
Connan Mockasin - Forever dolphin love (Because)
Crystal Stilts - In love with oblivion (Fortuna Pop)
Antonymes - A licence to interpret dreams (Hidden Shoal)
Metronomy - The English Riviera (Because)
EDM - Night people (Western Vinyl)
Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat - Everything's getting older (Chemikal Underground)
Josh Ottum - Watch TV (Tapete Records)
A Winged Victory for the Sullen – A Winged Victory for the Sullen (Erased Tapes)
Various Artists - Our lives are shaped by what we love: Motown's Mowest Story 1971-1973 (Light in the Attic)
Roll the Dice – In dust (Leaf)
Eden Ahbez – Eden’s Island (Trunk Records)
Peter Broderick – Music for Confluence (Erased Tapes)
Nils Frahm – Felt (Erased Tapes)
Apparat – The devil’s walk (Mute)
Dark Captain – Dead legs and alibis (LoAF)
Rachael Dadd – Bite the mountain (Broken Sound Records)
Barry McCormack – Small mercies (Hag’s Head)
Land Lovers – Confidants (Popical Island)
The Beach Boys – The Smile Sessions (Capitol)
Various Artists - The Roots of Trash and Garage (Chrome Dreams)
Grizzly Bear (and others) - Blue Valentine OST (Lakeshore Records)
Jean-Claude Vannier – Electro Rapide: Experimental Pop Instrumentals from Jean-Claude Vannier's Vintage Vaults (Finders Keepers)
Neville Skelly – Poet and a dreamer (Setanta)
*Olafur Arnalds - Living room songs (Erased Tapes)
*Gang Gang Dance - Eye contact (4AD)

Also moved by
Record Labels
Liz Green
Other Lives
The Last Sound
Patrick Kelleher & His Cold Dead Hands
Rozi Plain
(The) Caseworker
Dum Dum Girls
Low
Cloud Control
Tarwater
Larsen feat. Little Annie
Anna Calvi
Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons
Peaking Lights
My Brightest Diamond
Pepe Deluxé
Bruce Haack
The Scaramanga Six
Mint Julep
Ryan Gosling & Michelle Williams

Films
Blue Valentine
Incendies
An Island

Gigs
Efterklang (Savoy Theatre, Cork)
Crystal Stilts (Grand Social, Dublin)
Fleet Foxes (Marquee, Cork)
Ryan Francesconi (Triskel Christchurch, Cork)
Thread Pulls (Crane Lane Theatre, Cork)
Josh T. Pearson (Crane Lane Theatre, Cork)
Johann Johannsson (Triskel Christchurch, Cork)

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