The Underground of Happiness

And so we come to the end of this look back to 2013. Enjoy these and all the posts. By the way, there are a couple of podcasts on the 2013 Review theme on these links, one from December, one from last July. http://i.mixcloud.com/CFKuxK and http://i.mixcloud.com/CCxjsv Saint Yorda – Disco The highly promising debut single from a Cork band who sadly broke up later in the year. Cowbells, a steel drum sample, a great rolling tom drum backbeat, some exquisite syncopated muted guitar and a wonderful falsetto male vocal – these are just some of its pleasures. With shades of the xx and Hot Chip, as sign offs go it’s quite beautiful. Major Lazer feat Ezra Koenig – Jessica Catchy as hell dub cut from the American producer with a memorable vocal turn by the Vampire Weekend frontman. I’ve been trying to put my finger on what’s so great about this and I’ve come up with a word – louche. That’s it friends, it’s the height of loucheness. Elephant – Shapeshifter Ano...

Part 3 in this 4-part series of reminisciences on the year gone by. I'm pairing Garage Pop with Prog Pop in this post (and why not, they could possibly do with being paired together more often, even within the same song perhaps), as well as some funk cuts on the side. Again, there's plenty of Irish content in here too in what was another notable year for Irish releases - of all kinds. A reminder that you can find Parts 1 & 2 under December 2013 in the Posts menu on the right of the page. And Part 4 is on the way later in the week. The Grays – Very best years To start, the first of several entries in these lists not from the last year at all, just discovered by me for the first time in 2013. This peach came on my radar courtesy of a Facebook post by Eric Matthews (ex-Cardinal), the kind of happening that tends to represent a tiny chink of light in the mostly dark nether world of social media. The Grays were a supergroup, a bunch of friends between projects put tog...

Part 2 of my favourite music of the year, this one taking in various strands of psych and kraut sounds. As we know, there's plenty of psych in the water everywhere these days (a new Psych Fest in Liverpool, which had its second outing last September, is just one example close to home). In Cork in particular, a whole rash of bands are drawing on different parts of the broad psych church to great effect. I interviewed Cathal and Paddy from The Altered Hours in May (link here ) and asked them why they thought there was an upsurge of psych influences at the moment. Cathal thought it might be down to the recent success of Tame Impala and he could well be right. Incidentally, I also wrote about this in terms of the Cork context on WeAreNoise back in March. Cork-based bands such as O Emperor (see below), Elastic Sleep (to come in Part 3) and even Saint Yorda (to come in Part 4) could all be identified with psych in some way. http://wearenoise.com/index.php/2013/03/psych-is-the-glue-in...

Happy New Year everyone. As the end of the year draws near, I’ve taken stock of my favourite music of 2013. Once again, my labels or categories are a little bit arbitrary but I have tried to theme or curate the lists as much as possible. This is the first of those, anchored by quite a bit of folk music, which I’m always open to. There will be three more of these over the next week or 10 days. And the last show of the year from mid December is also on this link for an hour long compendium drawn from all four posts. http://i.mixcloud.com/CFKuxK Peter Delaney – Sleep, nausea A short piece on an album of extended meditations (which makes it even more compelling to me) from the Limerick folk musician with a commitment to early and vintage recordings. There’s a ukulele, a fragile, high register male voice and an atmosphere of middle-of-the-night fearfulness – “God tells me things I shouldn’t know.” Marvel at its spare brilliance. Witch Bottle by Peter Delaney Hidden Highways ...

A mixture this week of a few Christmas tunes, a few more Best of 2013 picks plus a few new tunes. (Watch out for dedicated podcasts on the Best of 2013 review as well as a Christmas theme over the next few weeks.) Seasonal - Dean & Britta , lush dream pop channelling Lee Hazlewood; Cocteau Twins making flippant sound like a headrush; and Lost Idol bringing medieval choral sounds and dubstep brilliantly into contact with each other. Best of 2013 - Dott singing classic Brill Building style songs within garage pop; Shearwater w/ Sharon van Etten , ineffably gorgeous; Jeffrey Lewis making one of the best statements of the year in the form of a question - What Would Pussy Riot Do? And a couple of new songs. Howe Gelb with Bonnie Prince Billy , sounding like Leonard Cohen doing 1950's country. And Frankie Rose making pillow-soft synth pop from the New Order songbook. More on these pages. Dec 3 2013 show w/ Dott,September Girls,Jeffrey Lewis,Shearwater,Dean & ...

Just catching up on a bit of housekeeping after being away, including a couple of playlists from the end of July. This one is a round up of some of my favourite music of 2013 so far. I say some because an hour wouldn't come near to fitting all of it - I might look at a standalone podcast to cover the rest. Stay tuned. Anyway, what's in here. Well two "Cork" bands to start, O Emperor and The Altered Hours , that is two bands based in the city but originally from other places (an interesting feature of the Cork music scene at the moment that) who have both issued notable independent releases this year - an album and EP respectively - and are blazing a trail in front of them in terms of live shows. You'll find reviews/interviews/more info on the blog on both, in fact on all of the below. For now, I'll leave the rest for listening. Come end of year, I'll look at writing some words on each again. Enjoy. Mid Year Review w/ O Emperor,The Altered Hours,E...