The Underground of Happiness

A beautiful follow on from the Promises EP of last year from Guy Blakeslee and friends. It’s a sweet song about love in roughly folk guitar picking clothes but with a great supporting psych pop ensemble of warped strings, vibes and massed singers, suggesting the vaguely unhinged quality that can often accompany amour. It builds to an uncomplicated lovely rush and breaks back down to just Blakeslee’s very endearing vibrato voice. Just wonderful.

Some odd things this week. Odd can be beautiful. Ariel Pink & Weyes Blood joining forces for something epic and strange. Half Japanese with legendary force for good Jad Fair sounding in great voice. Stephen EvEns coming on like a Cardiacs outtake, excellent. New music from Goldfrapp , not so much odd as just brilliant. And not odd at all, exactly as you'd expect, glorgeous songwriting from Mark Eitzel , who is on tour in Europe soon. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness i>uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 432 Tues Jan 31 2017 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm) UCC 98.3FM listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/983fm *listen back to this show here goo.gl/o0SptT Playlist C Duncan – Nothing more ( playing Cyprus Avenue, Cork, May 4 ) Mark Eitzel – The last ten years ( playing Cypru...

Musical moments and memories from the year gone by. In no particular order. Enjoy. ******************************************************************* 1. North Sea Radio Orchestra – Dronne (The Household Mark) Another sublime set of tunes from Craig Fortnam and company which combines folk, kosmische and avant garde classical strands, taking the legacy of former band Cardiacs into fascinating new territory. Woodwind and strings are strong and strident against a hushed motorik rhythm on centrepiece song ‘The British road’, a wonderfully sharp state of the nation analysis of Brexit era Britain – when will they learn to fight like our men, how can I rise if you don’t fall. These poised swooping strings, along with the cooing woodwind, the signature guitar style of Craig Fortnam – courtly, playful, lithe – buzzing synths and the great pure singing of Craig’s wife Sharon against Craig’s reedier tones provide the core elements throughout. Essential food for the ears, th...

Appropriately entrancing chamber cut from Guy Blakeslee aka Entrance . The title track of the EP has an anguished tone with a slightly haunted grace note courtesy of a chorus of filtered female voices. Blakeslee’s own voice has a hint of Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes about it, but his would be the lower key yang to Gano’s feverish yin. Maybe traces too of Elliot Smith in the raw heart on sleeve aesthetic and Scott Walker in the unhurried elegance of the orchestral arrangements and a particularly effective tympani like drumbeat. Time is the theme, or rather our approach to it, and life. There’s a deep pull to these lines. If we only kept half of our promises We might even earn the right to exist A majestic introduction.

A few compilations we dipped into this week. Tim Maia was a groundbreaking Brazilian singer/songwriter who paved a way in funk, out on Luaka Bop . Numero Group continue their great archive work by compiling the American kid bands who followed in the wake of The Jackson Five in the 1970s. And J&D with a Northern Soul cut from their UK soul scene 3 disc compilation. Entrance with a gorgeous chamber folk song with a hint of psych about it. Damien Jurado , compelling as ever, from the sountrack of Tumbledown . And The Sea Nymphs from the early 90s, a jaunty genreless gem. And Rattle . Two women. Two drumkits. Two voices. 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 418 Tues Oct 11 2016 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm) UCC 98.3FM listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/983fm *liste...