The Underground of Happiness

Another hodge podge of generally loud fast music often featuring loud guitars and sometimes even loud keyboards. There are also some hushed varieties (to make up for the lack of volume those have a spooky air) and at least a few with no guitars at all. That's the beauty of pop music and 2014 was another vintage year. 1. Ezra Furman – My zero (Bar None) Let’s start with an album not technically released last year (towards the end of 2013), but it sank home with me in the early weeks of last January. The day of the dog is a bracing blast of beat rock n roll from an age before The Beatles, never mind the internet...committed, passionate and filled with buzzing guitar hooks and, inspiringly, saxophones. This song was my anthem from it. It’s a class tune all over. Shades of The Modern Lovers and even Violent Femmes here and there but Furman's voice in particular is all his own - brilliantly strained, reaching. There's not enough of that in pop music. The who...

Still working through the summer backlog this week. New albums from two English artists - Jack Cheshire , some nice Nick Drake-ish jazz folk tones, and from Satellites , something slightly more epic. V.O. back with a new single, what a great band, and I've also been liking Mick Harvey's latest album a lot recently. Three acts playing the Liverpool Psych Fest at the end of the month, showing just how much variety you can fit under that banner - The Lucid Dream (psych rock), Plankton Wat ( sun-baked folk ) and Eat Lights Become Lights (krautrock). Two from the Hidden Shoal label, lovely dream pop from Kramies , and something more of a chamber persuasion from Liam Singer , brilliant. Sophia Knapp sounding like a woozy Stevie Nicks and some tropical sounds from Delorean , you can't beat it. Sept 10 2013 w/ V.O.,Mick Harvey,ELBL,Jack Cheshire,Satellites,Grant Hart,Sunray,Plankton Wat++ by Theundergroundofhappiness on Mixcloud The Underground of H...

The project of Englishman Neil Rudd, Eat Lights Become Lights take various strands of Krautrock (motorik pulses, drones, some pastoral kosmische soundscapes too) and mould them into a gleaming vehicle for 21st century (mostly) instrumental pop. The album gets straight onto the autobahn with a thrilling opening, ‘Modular living’, full of sprightly mid range pulses and energising upper arpeggios (full drums help too), before gearing down for ‘MOD-ULO-510’, a steadfast, nodding rhythm full of comforting bleeps and synth rushes, more suited to a Sunday drive on a quiet side road perhaps. Back on to the main drag for ‘13th Looking South’, using a lovely motorised drone with twinkling side effects. Although the front of the album is loaded in motorik gear, there is still room for beautiful diversions into pastoral terrain midway through. ‘Rowley Way Overlook’ is a particularly gorgeous kosmische interlude, intertwining keyboard melodies wrapping around just the hint of a filter...

Eat Lights Become Lights (pictured) were back on the show with the title track of an album I'm growing to love more every week. Again, I paired them with The Last Sound , from another brilliant piece of work, and both albums drawing on different strands of Krautrock, among other things. O Emperor and Grave Lanterns share a stage together in Cork this weekend, two Cork-based bands flying the flag for a kind of renegade strain of pop music. New singles from Dutch Uncles (playing Longitude Festival in Dublin), The New Mendicants (touring the UK), Polica and Kathryn Williams . More haunting music from Nancy Elizabeth's new album (review on the blog now), Angkorwat from The Outer Church compilation on Front & Follow, and something ineffably beautiful from a couple of years back from A Winged Victory for the Sullen who announced some UK shows this week. July 9 2013 w/ O Emperor,Grave Lanterns,Nancy Elizabeth,Kandodo,Angkorwat,Eat Lights Become Lights++ by Th...

More Thrill Jockey nuggets this week. More drone nuggets. More psych pop nuggets. More ambient nuggets (that's probably not the right word for those). Date Palms (pictured below) with a great gradually evolving drone that shimmers like the desert sun, Grumbling Fur with some wonderful electro pop. Eat Lights Become Lights bringing the motorik. O Emperor with the soulful psych pop. Pieter Nooten and Jumpel with two takes on a European ambient sound. New Camera Obscura , sublime. New Halves feat Gemma Hayes , intriguing & swooning. Deerhunter with the dream pop, Pierre Henry & Pierre Schaefer with the groundbreaking musique concrete. All We Are with the "Bee Gees on diazepam" (love that description and it sounds good too). Bibio with some great summery folktronica. Eleanor Friedberger with a lovely mod-soul take on coming out. As ever, more on these pages June 18 2013 w/ O Emperor,Halves,Date Palms,Eat Lights Become Lights,Grumbling Fur,Bibi...

I’m always interested to know where (geographically) music comes from – on this week’s show, it came from Canterbury, Liege, London, Brooklyn, Paris, Sheffield, Manchester, Swindon, Berlin and Cinncinatti. Where (philosophically, creatively) it comes from is another matter… More Sone Institute ( A model life ), XTC ( Apple Venus ), Wires Under Tension, Little Annie & Baby Dee, Wussy, Laetitia Sadier, Richard Hawley (Irish Tour next week) & Peter Broderick . Plus for the first time, The Loved Drones (drifting psych pop), Jacqueline Taleb (Beginner's Guide to French Pop compilation), Milk Maid (like a shoegazey Big Star), Eat Lights, Become Lights (furious krautrock backbeat), Syd Arthur (jazz folk feel) and Daphni , which is actually Caribou/Dan Snaith under a different name, with some lovely, loose and soulful house music. And Melody’s Echo Chamber to finish, a pop tune so perfect I think I’d rank it up there with Downtown , the Petula Clark version, in other words an...