The Underground of Happiness

New Jess Williamson (pictured) on the show this week. A bit of a departure based on her previous stuff I've heard. She apparently moved from Texas to California. Sounds like a good move. Blue sky psych pop shall we say. Caroline Says (Caroline Sallee) moved to Austin Texas from Alabama and recorded her second album late at night in her apartment with gorgeous hushed vocals. Landless are a 4-piece a capella Irish group. Here's a spellbinding lament from their debut album. Jim Ghedi - great folk instrumentals undercut with classical strings and a lovely trumpet part. And The Double Six of Paris . Giving Ray Charles an upbeat jazz treatment. 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 484 Tues Apr 3 2018 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm) UCC 98.3FM listen live on...

The second album from Caroline Sallee – from Alabama by way of Austin – following quickly on from last year’s wonderful 50,000,000 Elvis fans can’t be wrong . It picks up on that album’s most interesting (to me) thread. Banks of backing vocals. Cooing and swooping in unexpected ways. As on her debut album much more than a background affair. In many ways more expressive than the lead vocal which has a deadpan quality. It’s very lovely for that. Maybe hushed would be a better word. In fact the press release informs that the album was recorded in Sallee’s apartment with the vocals often done late at night. Sometimes a necessity can become a virtue. Elsewhere there are baroque touches reminiscient of Grizzly Bear. For example the jarring but melodic intervention at the opening of the 2nd verse of ‘First song’. Also the sublime use of a soul sample on ‘Sweet Home Alabama’. The excellent itchy hi hat work on ‘Rip off’. The sheer deadpan stoicism of the whole thing....

There’s a deceptive and devastating simplicity to this wracked blues from the Austin Texas singer. Williamson’s voice is a wonderful instrument for starters, hovering on the edge of cracking, somewhere between a plea and Portuguese fado, a distant relation to Angel Olsen maybe, so little enough is needed in the musical arrangement to set it off. Just some of the tastiest reverbed and tremolo-laced guitar since Chris Isaak and perfectly judged drumbeats, shading in between the lines with sensitivity and artistry so that the magnificent singing remains centre stage. All in all it has the air of a David Lynch soundtrack cut, a shimmer of moonlight, a shiver, a dream, something from another world. A memorable and intriguing piece of pop music. *Opening album track ‘Say it’ is also a beautiful thing, a cousin to ‘See you in a dream’, another smouldering blues with a lovely reined in walking guitar line and a vocal to strap your soul to where every breath is a matter of ...

Epic compelling guitar soundscapes by Sarah Lipstate of Austin Texas (she originally defined herself as a guitar project although there are apparently some synths in here). The tone can turn from brooding to meditative at the flick of a wrist and it makes sense to discover that Lipstate is also a filmmaker, so assured are the switches in mood. Opener ‘Into the dunes’ creates a terrific sense of foreboding with low drones and crunching power chords edging into creeping John Carpenter territory. 'No unholy mountain' takes a prismatic psych approach to arpeggios and sound bleed which is pure gorgeousness. There’s a distinct Reichian flavour to the opening cascade of notes in ‘Rubicon’ and a great hint of Orange Juice style new wave verve about the overlapping guitar lines in ‘Sisters’. And check the lovely ambient Badalamenti haze of ‘Concrete dreams’. Whatever the mood what I particularly like about this album is the restraint - the build is measured, never force...