The Underground of Happiness

That's Christopher Porpora aka Cheval Sombre in the picture below, he plays his first Irish show in Cobh next month, excellent. He's a friend of Dean & Britta and they used one of his songs for their 13 Most Beautiful , the Andy Warhol Screen Tests project, pairing 'I found it not so' with Mary Woronov's compelling features. There's a raft of festival action happening - Noveller at Incubate , Death & Vanilla at Liverpool Psych Fest , Jeff Lewis at Clonakilty International Guitar Fest . And gorgeous new music from Kodiak Deathbeds , featuring the great voice of Amber Webber of Black Mountain/Lightning Dust . More on these pages as always. Sept 15 2015 w/ Gun Outfit,Cheval Sombre,Dean & Britta,Kodiak Deathbeds,JR Green,Robert Forster,Low+ by The Underground Of Happiness on Mixcloud The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappi...

A beautiful album of hushed and sparkling psych pop from Sweden, which manages to sound both precious and thrilling. Right from the opening song ‘Necessary distortions’ (even that title tells a lot about the band’s aesthetic), the deceptively sweet sounding vocal melodies, the thrumming bassline, the swirling filtered keyboard and the haunted atmospherics are all present. In fact, ‘The optic nerve’ that follows is like a slowed down sister song, employing similarly mesmerising arpeggios backed up by shimmering reverbed guitar and all manner of electronic squiggles and twirls. And no great changes for ‘Arcana’, another gorgeous tune with the hushed feathery vocals of Marleen Nilsson, deliriously wobbling guitars and washes of organ on the backdrop. ‘California owls’ comes on like Julee Cruise fronting The Free Design, a kissing cousin of The Velvet Underground's 'Sunday morning', beautiful naive pop that takes on an edgier hue as it grows on you with the spoo...

Two of my favourite albums over the last few months were in this week's show. Death & Vanilla play a wonderfully delicate brand of psych pop, haunted and gorgeous equally. And Jon DeRosa whose new album is a dream of crooning dream pop with unsettling undertones, not a million miles from the tone confusion you find with music in David Lynch films. Brilliant. Stump reformed in secret to play a show in Cork last weekend, any excuse to dip into their back catalogue. Three outstanding female innovators in pop music at the heart of the show - Circuit des Yeux, Holly Herndon & Bjork . Majestic if broken/industrial orchestral offerings from Beck & Roll The Dice . And soulful, cosmic, motorik beauties from The Great Balloon Race & Vinyl Williams . More on these pages. May 26 2015 w/ Circuit des Yeux,Holly Herndon,Stump,Roll the Dice,Jon DeRosa,Bjork,TGBR++ by The Underground Of Happiness on Mixcloud The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop mu...

We kicked off this week with some classic Luna who are reforming to play some shows this year. Especially beautiful about this song is the driving bassline by Britta Phillips . The new single from Swedish duo Death & Vanilla , another gorgeous wash of dreamy psych pop. The new Aloa Input album has lovely shades of early Beck and the Beta Band a bit, the latter are in there too from 1997 sounding like Beck jamming with Can. A couple of great Tropicalia cuts, Os Mutantes from 1968 and Gal Costa putting the cosmic soul back into acid rock. Lower Dens not neglecting the motorik, Smile Down Upon Us with some wonderfully daft and breezy pop music. Jean-Claude Vannier marshalling a female choir of chants and footstamps and fingerclicks. And August Wells feat. Ken Griffin ex Rollerskate Skinny channelling Scott Walker beautifully. More on these pages. Apr 7 2015 w/ Luna,Death & Vanilla,Beta Band,JC Vannier,Lower Dens,Os Mutantes,August Wells++ by The Underground ...

A few new releases from Fire Records this week, all great. Death & Vanilla are a Swedish duo with many strings to their bow, one of which is gorgeous haunted psych pop songs, bathed in reverb. Noveller makes epic instrumentals with one guitar. And Surf City are a sunny upbeat psych outfit from Auckland. Get into it. I'm also in love with Marker Starling this week, giving out about husbands on tour misbehaving, AM rock faintly reminiscient of Steely Dan but with beautiful reed and wind backing. There's Natalie Prass given full baroque orchestral treatment. New music from The Great Balloon Race , great shifting prog pop, their 2nd album is due out soon. Myles Manley , someone pay him what he's worth ffs (but ironically if he was paid what he's worth, he might not produce killer tunes like this). Cat Palace , what a wonderful singing voice that man has. And The Drink musing on narcolepsy - "a petit maaaaaaaaaaaaaal". More on the blog. Fe...