The Underground of Happiness

Tantalising follow-up EP to last year’s tasty Love this giant album from this pair, who trot out at the Electric Picnic Festival in Ireland this weekend. You might find a hint of Bjork’s Dancer in the Dark soundtrack in the austere, awe-inspiring brass tones and mechanical percussion (by John Congleton) of lead track ‘Cissus’. Although that’s the EP highpoint on track one, there are still enough bonkers flights of fancy and musical nuggets on the rest to blow the opposition out of the water. Including a couple of live tracks from their touring over the last year (one Talking Heads number ‘Road to nowhere’, one St Vincent , the marvellous ‘Marrow’) and a couple of remixes. Whatever this pair get up to, they can do no wrong in my book.

The new collaboration between David Byrne and St Vincent is definitely one of the musical events of the year for me. Apart from the album, they've also just begun a US tour with a 16-piece (I think it is), mostly brass, backing band. That's just shit cool. Here's some fan footage from their gig in Minneapolis the other night for a flavour, as they run through some Talking Heads and St Vincent material, with some interesting choreography. Having had the album for a few weeks now, it's as obtuse and angular as you might expect from two people who each pretty much define the phrase "singular artist". There aren't that many straightforwardly upfront tunes on the album (the brilliant closer Outside of time and space is one exception, where the brass backing takes on a plaintiff colliery band feel). But it's still never less than engrossing and the everpresent brass and reed textures give it a wonderfully offbeat tone, compared to the majority ...

I think the trick with chamber pop is to introduce enough acid elements to balance the sweetness, like lemon juice in a tart. There’s plenty of swooning on Composed (the bending string arrangements alone would break your heart at several different times), but it’s offset by some gothic lyricism and an intriguing minor-key undertow to make an intriguing, moving whole. I should fess up, I’m a sucker for chamber pop. We can agree that Van Dyke Parks was the chief pioneer in this area – the man is one of my heroes – and the whiff of VDP floats around this album like a warm embrace, in its showtune interludes, beautifully subtle keyshifts and full use of every orchestral voice. Actually, “chamber” is a moot point – you could say orchestral – but I’d stick with the word on the basis of the winning personal and intimate atmosphere all through. The guest vocal turns will attract most of the headlines – David Byrne, Caetano Veloso, Dawn McCarthy, Mirah Zeitlyn, Zac Pennington, SoKo ,...

There are several reasons to love Jherek Bischoff's new album, Composed . Firstly, it's on The Leaf Label , who are on a particularly hot streak this year, following two stunning releases already from Matthew Bourne and AU . Secondly, it features guest contributions from David Byrne, Caetano Veloso, Nels Cline, Carla Bozulich, Zac Pennington and Soko , among others, all of which are sparkling and vibrant. But thirdly, and most importantly for me, it occupies the musical area known as chamber pop . You know we love a bit of chamber pop around here. This is a swooping, fluttering, brilliantly orchestrated album of tunes which recalls Van Dyke Parks at his best. I'm not going to say any more for now because I'm still digesting its multi-faceted gorgeousness, but there'll be loads more on the radio show from this in the near future.