The Underground of Happiness

I decided to do something a little bit different this year. Instead of a bunch of overtly Christmas tunes (much as I love them) I thought I’d do a more general winter theme. (By the way you can find several Christmas playlists from years past on the site if that’s your thing.) So this is a version of winter music. What’s that says you. Music with a sense of time passing. A sense of coming to the end of something. The year obviously but maybe something else too. Some music references the time of year explicitly either in titles or in lyrics. Or the weather we associate with winter in our northern hemisphere. In other cases it’s something in the arrangement. The spareness maybe conjuring up a bare frozen landscape. Take Laura Cannell’s double recorder for example. Or the massive string drones of Slow Moving Clouds . There is meditation in it. Observation of the world and its effect on our selves. And a certain strangeness at times. The alienation of it...

A little while back I put together a mix of my favourite singers and vocalists . There were 39 tracks in it but as soon as I finished it I realised there were loads I’d forgotten about. So here’s Part 2 (possibly of an ongoing series). There’s a capella, shoegaze (a genre often highlights and heightens the vocals), stirring soul, sunshine pop, jazz, group singing, solo. It can be hard to distinguish where the great song ends and the great singer starts. Is it the song or the singer? I don’t know but I know what I like. Enjoy. Playlist Nat King Cole – Nature boy (Capitol) Doris Day – Secret love (from the soundtrack of the film Calamity Jane ) Julee Cruise – Falling (from the soundtrack of the film/tv series Twin Peaks ) Susanna & the Magical Orchestra – Hallelujah (Rune Grammafon) Laetitia Sadier – Invitation au silence (Drag City) C Duncan – Silence and air (Fat Cat) Kathryn Joseph – the want (Hits The Fan Records) Jonathan Hering – Hear my p...

For the first show of 2017 a mixture of some 2016 faves and some new music. The former. Weyes Blood , majestic break up music. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith , beguiling organic synth tunes. Tortoise , a twisting groovebeast. Lambchop , a subtly shifting pitter patter autotuned animal. The latter. Courtney Marie Andrews , sumptuous country regret. Flo Morrissey & Matthew E. White , a lovely soulful flight of fancy. Noveller , new year, same old epic soundscapes. And a wonderful treasure from 1970, Lee Hazlewood with Suzi Jane Hokom in Sweden. 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 428 Tues Jan 3 2017 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/NhPIl9 Playlist Courtney Marie Andrews –...

One last post before New Year's. This one rounds up some tunes mostly from the second half of the year. It turns out there was a lot of great instrumental music in there. Plus some other material that I think fits with that. Enjoy and see you on the other side. Fixity – Hungry clouds Tortoise – The catastrophist Elias Krantz – Patchwork Pt 1 Syrinx – Aurora spinray Marielle V Jakobsons – Rising light Cavern of Anti-Matter feat. Bradford Cox – liquid gate Melt Yourself Down – Dot to dot The Comet Is Coming – Space carnival Dieterich & Barnes – Parasol gigante Alien Ensemble – Skeleton dance Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith – Arthropoda Matthew Bourne – Keighley Qluster – Glasperlenspiel Nathan Bowles – Chiaroscuro Lambchop – Flotus Iggy Pop, Tarwater & Alva Noto – As Adam early in the morning/I am he that aches with love Rothko – A young fist curled around a cinder for a wager Wymond Miles – Protection C Duncan – Nothing more Weyes Blood – Generation Why Cool...

Part 2 of this list, out of four in total, the others to follow in January. There will be another Best of Mix also over the next week, stay tuned to Mixcloud. ********************************************************************* 1. Trashcan Sinatras – Let me inside (Or let me out) A monumental year for fans of this treasured Scottish band. A new crowdfunded album, the wonderful Wild pendulum , possibly their best ever work, and tours in America and Europe. And having seen them play live in November, the big insight (other than the obvious genius on show) was the sheer soulfulness of the songs. So yeah, top notch tunes and buckets of soul. I’ll take that any year. http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.ie/2016/11/trashcan-sinatras-workmans-club-dublin.html Track 14 in this playlist 2. Britta Phillips – One fine summer morning (from the album Luck or magic, Double Feature) Another artist I saw play live in 2016. In these thoughts from last June, I was zoning...

A late entry into my end of year thinking but not to worry as this is an album that needs time to smoulder. The opening song has a gorgeous sweep if you take a minute – banks of devotional voices, a surrounding sense of mystery and a graceful but insistent melody. And in the end a kind of soulfulness, a reaching out, perhaps an effort to alleviate the weight, underneath the sublime minimalist stylings. There's something deeply existential about this sound but in the end it is simply transcendant. The Midnight Sun by C Duncan

And so the final instalment of this Best of 2015 review, which has a Soul/Dream Pop tag ostensibly but really is a collection of odds and ends left over. (Floating Points, for example, could certainly have belonged in Part 1 if I had my head on straight a few weeks ago.) These round ups are by nature a time travel exercise, some of the music here being a year old. But even since Part 1 of the review in mid-December, the world seems a very different place. It's now a post-David Bowie time, a post-Mick Lynch time, mortality comes for all of us, better get used to it. Enjoy the music while you can. ************************************************************************************************ 1. Marker Starling – Husbands (from the album Rosy Maze , Tin Angel Records) Spring 2015 was all about my obsession with this song, a glorious discovery and an enduring memory from the year. From February - There’s an automatic association for Steely Dan, I think, a kin...

Just the way it fell but a bit of a 1980s theme this week. The new Creation Records box set is out on Cherry Red and I was lucky enough to get my hands on a copy (thanks Ricky). It covers 1983 and 1984, the first two years of the label, and how great it is to hear gems like The Pastels & The Loft . Cardiacs are also being reissued, from 1984, and The Go Betweens from the same year, well we don't need an excuse. Also some winter themes - Laura Cannell , arresting Laura Cannell remixed by Lutine , haunting C Duncan , fantastic misty dream pop Jóhann Jóhannsson , slow moving grandeur Slow Moving Clouds , stringed majesty. And Mikael Tariverdiev , wonderful Russian film music from the 1960s. More on these pages. Dec 1 2015 w Sea Pinks,The Drink,Laura Cannell,Jóhann Jóhannnsson,Go Betweens,Cardiacs++ by The Underground Of Happiness on Mixcloud The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com w...

Some whistling to start off the show this week. Esquivel pushed the boundaries of stereo sound (and orchestral arrangements) in the 50s and 60s. And C Duncan is doing similar with pop instruments and classical techniques. Both have knockout whistling interludes. New music from Best Boy Grip of Derry, always welcome, one of the best songwriters and arrangers on this island. J Fernandez , lovely Beach Boyish arrangement. Ezra Furman with that great manic energy but also a searing intellect. The Phoenix Foundation taking off into epic prog territory, a great trip. And The Chap are back and chapping away very chappishly as always. More on these pages. July 21 2015 w/ C Duncan,Beach Boys,J Fernandez,ALS,Blank Realm,Novella,Best Boy Grip++ by The Underground Of Happiness on Mixcloud The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy...

A thoroughly intoxicating album of leisurely (mostly) and dreamy paeans to the everyday from Mr Christopher Duncan of Glasgow. On one end of the scale you’ll find the very pleasantly Grizzly Bear-ish ‘Garden’ with its swooping ooh and aw vocals projecting against a driving psych pop backdrop. All on foot of a mere trip to the garden. Dialling the psych down a notch is the gorgeous ‘Here to there’ with reverbed and falsetto vocal harmonies let loose over a thrumming backbeat. In it Duncan suggests “it’s so familiar” and the song almost comes across as a mission statement for his music. How strange and astonishing the world around us is. Much of the rest of the album is in a lower but no less lovely gear. ‘For’ has a drifting folk-pastoral air to it (and the most beguiling whistling interlude since Esquivel’s version of ‘Sentimental journey’) with beautiful vocal arrangements on display once again. It’s the culmination of the album’s opening run taking in ‘Say’, the titl...

Angel Deradoorian used to be in Dirty Projectors where her voice was used to tremendous and startling effect in a choral bank. She's a solo artist now using her surname and operating out of L.A. but still sounding in fantastic voice. Nice to hear her alongside her old muckers + Bjork from 2010 serenading whales in Northern California. C Duncan is a singer and composer from Glasgow who makes beautiful baroque sounds with room for...rejoice...whistling. It was a recommendation from Kathryn Joseph that put me on to him, she needs no recommendation from me or anyone else, just take a listen and weep. Blank Realm make psych pop with a lovely glide to it, they're from Brisbane . Totally Mild are from Melbourne and make very tasty guitar pop with a twist. De Lux are a duo from L.A. who clearly enjoy Talking Heads (and who doesn't) and make a great rattle reminiscient of Tina Weymouth's bass playing and David Byrne's shouty singing. And Kevin Murphy ...