The Underground of Happiness

And finally Part 5. Orchestral/Prog/Classical/Choral are the topics under discussion (again, some of these could well find better homes in one of the other links, but who’s counting?). Best of 2012 Part 5 - all info on this and other 4 parts at theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com by Theundergroundofhappiness on Mixcloud The Sea and Cake – On and on Sam Prekop and friends returned with a characteristically lovely album of progressive pop adorned by hushed vocals last year, and none better than this infectious little number. The Great Balloon Race – Medicated hope Another very promising Cork band that I came to know for the first time last year, and who released their debut album in December. This tune takes some of the same influences as Prekop – the jerky, jazzy kind – and twists them into a fantastically catchy, restless, beat-driven thing. You’d never know they were huge King Crimson fans, really. One of the band’s singers, Marcus Gordon, spoke to me (as did The Alte...

Part 4 of my 2012 round up – Dancefloor/Garage Pop/House is what you may or may not find below. The Underground of Happiness Best of 2012 Part 4 by Theundergroundofhappiness on Mixcloud September Girls – Green eyed The best Irish single in a long while, taking a Wall of Sound/Girl Group aesthetic and bringing it to a new level with swirling organ. If they can write ten choruses as good as this one, get ready now for next year’s best album. The fact that they’re called after a Big Star song is obviously a bonus. I interviewed Jessie from the band a couple of months back, here’s that link. http://wearenoise.com/index.php/2012/11/september-girls-qa/ Wussy – Maglite Another band I got to know for the first time and fell in love with last year, but they’ve already achieved some level of cult status in the US over several albums. What do they sound like? I keep coming back to something like this – a dirtier, fuzzier, mostly faster, more blue collar version of Luna (they’ve g...

Part 3 of the 2012 round up. You’ll notice some overlap (unless I decide to take them out, aha) between some of these mixes and the show I broadcast in July, my best of the year to that point. Never mind. Plough on. I’m calling this one Folk/Cabaret/Gospel , which is more flagrant misuse of the English language. The Underground of Happiness Best of 2012 Part 3 by Theundergroundofhappiness on Mixcloud Little Annie & Baby Dee – Angels gone before Brilliantly louche but still touching tribute to lost friends from the two living legends. My few words about the album from last November. http://www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.ie/2012/11/little-annie-baby-dee-state-of-grace.html A thrilling, invigorating record bringing Baby Dee’s brilliantly fluid piano work together with Little Annie’s thoroughly lived-in (the definition of authentic) voice of experience. Touches of Weimar cabaret, via Tom Waits perhaps, opera, folk and jazz. Standout tracks are the pining ‘Angels gone ...

Some more highlights from a year of music. This year, I decided not to cut things down to size, so there’s a bit more in this round up than usual. So I’ve split them up into four mixes/podcasts. Part 1a was posted the other day, dealing with the first half of the year. The genre headings for the podcasts are a bit arbitrary and loose overall, but some kind of general guide. Or you can listen to tracks separately below. This one I’m calling Ambient/Tropical/RnB , for want of better vaguely misleading tags. The Underground of Happiness Best of 2012 Part I by Theundergroundofhappiness on Mixcloud Elisa Luu – FlussiGirl / Markus Mehr – Barcelona waltz Two very interesting European electronic artists, both on the Australian Hidden Shoal label. That’s how I found them and I’ve been playing them on the show now for a couple of years, since their last albums. I love what they do. Here’s some blog from the middle of the year. http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.ie/2012/07/elisa-l...

It was very remiss of me, but back in July – after picking my favourite music from the first half of the year for a playlist – I never posted the accompanying background as intended. So it sat there unfinished until now. On the bright side, I’m going to post it now, along with my picks from the second half of 2012, making for a neat two-hander (hopefully). As with all these things, a flick around the blog will usually unearth more info on the tunes, something I’d strongly recommend in all cases. This week's show was a kind of round-up of my favourite music of the year so far (being that we're about halfway through the calender at this point). If you're a regular listener or check in on the blog regularly, you'll already know what my faves consist of. They're in these playlist posts. But to go with that playlist, I thought I'd gather together some info about the tunes from these pages over the last 6 months. So here they are, starting with that mix. Podcast...