The Underground of Happiness

Meet Benin City. The lads in the sharp suits. Sharp tunes too.

Nisantashi Primary School have nothing to do with Japan. They're a 3-piece from Kiev and have a very tasty brand of rudimentary IDM w punk funk shadings.

The Brackish are a band from Bristol playing lovely instrumental post rock not a million miles from Tortoise.

Josh T Pearson is back with a collection of brash pop songs.

And The Saxophones making a most alluring dream pop.

More on these pages.



The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness
Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy

Playlist 480
Tues Feb 27 2018
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
goo.gl/YscbWb

Playlist
Spindle Ensemble – Moonbow (playing South Bank Centre, London, Mar 16)
Alex Stolze – Alkorhythmus
Jack Hayter – At Crossness Pumping Station
The Brackish…

A wonderful low key but sustaining collection of quixotic folk songs from the English artist...

...which is a lesson in how to make compelling arrangements out of small details.

And the many memorable moments are in the details.

Like the owls “whit whoo” of ‘Fanny on the hill’.

The plaintiff female vocal humming entry of ‘The Arandora star’ and later its rousing sea shanty build with fiddle and accordion.

The line in ‘I am John’s care home’ – “here in this place we’ll turn sand into light bulbs / Let in the sun that turns shit into gold” – over lovely woozy steel guitar.

The line in ‘At Crossness Pumping Station’ – “what keeps me here / the shit and piss and afterbirth / the blood and spunk and snot and tears / we wait those years at the pumping station” – over beguiling harmonica fragments.

The haunting vocal chorus of ‘The mulberry tree at Abbey Wood’.

The strummed fiddle of ‘Fanny on the hill’.

Hayter’s voice is a joy throughout. A colloquial and entire…

A sublime piece of breezy jazz tropicalia from Sam Prekop and friends.

Trends come and go but this is a band that dodges musical fashions effortlessly.

Ageless.

Any Day by The Sea and Cake

A couple of surf references in this week’s show which is nice on the cusp of winter/spring.

La Luz are a 4-piece from Seattle (or I’ve also seen LA) and their tune ‘Cicada’ is a brilliantly propulsive piece of surf noir, that’s what they’re calling it.

Sven Libaek soundtracked a surf documentary in 1968. Here we had the wonderful theme from that OST which sounds a little like The Byrds gone lounge. (What a lost opportunity says you.)

Also Nightports with Matthew Bourne making beautiful piano (re)shapes.

Tune Yards going full soul diva on the excellent ‘Heart attack’.

Brickwork Lizards carving a space for Egyptian fusion in Oxford.

And a little Petula Clark to show everyone how to make perfect pop music.

More on these pages.



The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness
Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy

Playlist 479
Tues Feb 20 2018
11.00am-12.00pm
(repeated on Tuesda…

Baroque pop seems to be making a comeback.

About time says you.

Here’s another record from the Brooklyn trio full of intrigue with danceable backbeats and glittering instrumentation.

Ringing Rickenbacker guitars.

Sparkling analogue synths.

Pristine vocals.

Like an unholy and wonderful amalgam of The Byrds Stereolab and The Free Design.

Dreamy and haunting and melodious and unsettling.

Also full of great tunes and very forward thinking.

Birds of America by Lake Ruth

Dance music to make people who don’t know how to dance dance.

Say no more.

Valentines are in the air. We had a few but not the soppy kind.

Manly regret and nostalgia soaked in strings from Richard Hawley.

Stirring moving heartwrenching soul lament from Nina Simone.

Serge & Jane with a glorious JC Vannier arranged paean to love in the margins.

Charlotte Gainsbourg with a gorgeous melancholy love letter to her father.

And Jack Hayter with wonderful quixotic and earthy English folk songs.

More on these pages.



The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness
Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy

Playlist 478
Tues Feb 13 2018
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
goo.gl/VR3cLv

Playlist
Richard Hawley – For your lover give some time
Nina Simone – Black is the colour of my true love’s hair
Spindle Ensemble – Kite (playing Southbank Centre, London, Mar 16)
…

A couple of themes in this week’s show.

Voices.

The wonderful bruised croon of Ken Griffin of August Wells, coming back again to Ireland to play in April. The epitome of soul.

The pure heart-piercing tones of Brona McVittie, from her beguiling new album.

Eden Ahbez, a lost treasure from 1960, imagining an idyllic existence amid hushed and spellbinding exotica.

Jack Hayter, a gritty maybe eccentric folk voice, contemplating the outpourings and emissions of a city.

And Orquesta Akokán, a Cuban group on Daptone. Irresistible frenetic Latin rhythms.

More on these pages.



The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness
Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy

Playlist 477
Tues Feb 6 2018
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
goo.gl/A8EBmW

Playlist
August Wells – Here in the wild (play…