The Underground of Happiness

I was reminded of Heaven or Las Vegas recently so felt like pulling it out for some classic Cocteau Twins from 1990. It still sounds as fresh and brilliant as ever. Elephant are responsible for an alluring modern brand of dream pop, love that too. SlowPlaceLikeHome from Donegal plays Cork soon; Cork band The Shaker Hymn tour the country on the back of their really good debut single; This Is The Kit are on tour with The National; Colleen too is in Cork, as are Dott ahead of their debut album. Dan Haywood with some intoxicating pastoral folk music, The Doomed Bird of Providence with another set of deeply affecting folk songs around the Australian colonial experience. Satelliti , loving them, smouldering, deconstructed jazz meets math rock...or something like that. (The) Caseworker making more beautiful minimal drone rock. And Brous back again, I can't get enough of her joie de vivre, soaring melodies and bonkers arrangements. Oct 22 2013 w/ SlowPlaceLikeHome,T...

We started this week with a Colleen/Seti The First pairing, who are playing together in Cork in a few weeks - delicately earthy, singular musings/brilliantly poised classical tunes. A couple of great new discoveries for me this week too, Brous (pronounced Bruce) sings bonkers 60s style pop with sweeping Morricone-esque arrangements (something from Ennio in the show too), and Elephant return with another blissful slice of dream pop - both intoxicating. The new Fuxa album features Britta Phillips on guest vocals, among others, singing the old Linda Ronstadt number 'Different drum' to Randall Niemann's 'Stand by me', stirring stuff. Satelliti are an intriguing Italian duo playing instrumental post rock with jazz tones; Satellites an Englishman in Copenhagen making satisfying alt-rock mini anthems. New Crystal Stilts and Hidden Highways and the infectious Congo-via-Liege pulse of Dragon Noir . More on these pages as always. Oct 8 2013 show w/ Co...

The Anglo-French English duo continue to astound us with singles of rare poise and beauty. This time, we have violins and an angelic choir on backing behind Amelia Rivas’ hazy vocal. It’s widescreen and Spectorish, starring glockenspiels as twinkling stars and ooh and aahs as a moon-induced headrush. It really is blissful dream pop of the highest order. “A canopy of bliss” is just about right. and free download in return for your e-mail address here

A few new tracks this week from female artists, or female-fronted bands, all of which are great. April March & Aquaserge have a great slice of French yé-yé with some psych pop thrown in; Nancy Elizabeth (pic) takes folk music thrillingly into Morricone territory; and Elephant channel doo wop via shoegaze. All round beautiful stuff. On top of that, we had three of the Choice Music Prize nominees (the Irish version of the Mercury Prize), which is announced on Thursday – Adrian Crowley, Mumblin’ Deaf Ro and windings will be well known to regular listeners, especially from last year. Also the great Melt Yourself Down (this song is now being used in a tv ad!), some lovely soulful house music from Corkman Denis Clifford , and various playful and progressive pop cuts from Shout Out Louds, Hero & Leander and Chin of Britain (that wins the prize for best band name in quite a while). Opening were September Girls (playing in Dublin Sunday), closing some peerless 90’s guitar p...