The Underground of Happiness

A review of the year so far in music. Some great sounds in 2018. Enjoy. Playlist 489 - Best of 2018, Jan-July Kacy & Clayton – The siren’s song (New West Records) Kacey Johansing – The hiding (Night Bloom Records/Melodic) Jessica Risker – Anyway when I look in your eyes (Western Vinyl) Jim Ghedi – Sloade Lane (Basin Rock Records) Szun Waves – Constellation (The Leaf Label) Spindle Ensemble – Moonbow (Adderwell Music) Nightports w/ Matthew Bourne – Exit (The Leaf Label) Get Well Soon – Martyrs (City Slang) Caroline Says – First song (Western Vinyl) The Saxophones – Aloha (Full Time Hobby) Jack Hayter – At Crossness Pumping Station (Gare du Nord) Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread - Less than positive (Full Time Hobby) Jennifer Castle – Texas (Paradise of Bachelors) Kamasi Washington – The Space Traveller’s Lullaby (Young Turks) Django Django – In your beat (Because Music) De Lux – 875 dollars (Innovative Leisure) BOYTOY – Mary Anne (Stolen Body ...

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....

******************************************************************************************************** Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble – Undying love for humanity (from the album Find me finding you , Drag City) Wonderful Brazilian twist on Laetitia’s signature kosmische. It’s hard to pick out any one element but I must say the vocals are a particular joy. Not just the lead which is as clear and pure as the best Stereolab . But the inspired backing ba da das which drive the playout. Still sounds fresh as a daisy almost a year after release. Michael Nau – I root (Full Time Hobby) Sublime hazy memories of love from Maryland in the US... ... as if Harry Nilsson turned his mind to happier fuzzier times. There’s very little detail to list here – a one and a half note guitar figure, a snare roll, a ride cymbal, a dream of a voice – but really the story is more to do with the atmosphere. Languid is a word. Sleepy maybe. Intimate for sure. ...

I love a good backing vocal. Especially the kind that elevates something already good into something special. That’s what happens here on the opening song of the album by Caroline Sallee who goes under Caroline Says . A simple but handsome acoustic fingerpick takes on an atmosphere of intrigue with the addition of an intrusive backing hum. I say intrusive to mean you can’t but be aware of it and it’s recorded right up to the mike becoming a wash that is higher in the mix than you would be used to for background humming. It also enters along with the main vocal which is immediately...not disorientating as such but certainly wrongfooting. Later the hums turn into sighs and swoop and swoon in a way that only reminds me of My Bloody Valentine. This is a clue for the rest of the album in fact as folk rubs shoulders with off kilter jangling pop elements (in which some of the melodies carry a certain MBV-ish menace). You might not say shoegaze bit it is a dream of what p...