The Underground of Happiness

Part 3 of this epic poem, and I hope your year's been good so far. We're at a faster clip (tempo basically) for this section, there's something about these songs that shows some kind of urgency, people in a hurry, on some kind of mission maybe. And it strikes me that few things in life are more exciting to me than pop music with progressive tendencies. What exactly this means we can debate but wrapping a pop tune around a literary/unexpected/twisted lyric or conceptual idea raises the genre to a higher artform. Or building a classic rock guitar riff then undercutting it with a kosmische synth. Or steeping a song in jazz influences only to strap a motorik backbeat onto it. Or...well you get the gist. Enjoy. ************************************************************************************************ 1. Ezra Furman – Restless year (from the album Perpetual motion people , Bella Union) Fantastic opening gambit from the lipsticked one’s current albu...

Fantastic opening gambit from the lipsticked one which picks up from where his last album left off. That is to say, rollicking between the eyes Violet Femmesesque rock and roll complete with fuzz bass, doo wop vocals and pots and pans percussion. These lines, roared in gravelly tones, are as good a way as any to sum up Furman’s manifesto - Making the rounds in my five dollar dress I can’t go home though I’m not homeless I’m just another savage in the wilderness And if you can’t come down you can listen to this There’s also pencil thin garage rock organ, Dostoyevsky and meditations on death. It’s thrilling hip-shaking brain-tickling stuff.

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...

Every year, something gets overlooked. In 2012 it was Ty Segall. Last year it was Ezra Furman (I'm sure others will emerge). I've been catching up on his Day of the dog album for the last couple of weeks and it's a keeper. It's great to hear an album with such freshness and, I don't know, abandon or something. There are 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. Although, as it happens the album standout for me is an example of him reining it in a tad, the completely convincing, slow-burning 'My zero'. It starts off like a slightly-too-fast ballad, nostalgic for times gone, but is soon ushered into daytime radio league via an irresistible chugging sax, one-string guitar riff and swooning fiddle part. Have a listen - you'll be singing it out loud all day, all the better to dislodge that...

Great news last week of a Cork gig for Julia Kent (pictured) in March (also Dublin). We took a track each from her last two albums, Character and Green and grey , each quite different but equally great. O Emperor are deservedly up for the Choice Irish album of the year, although no excuse needed to hear 'Holy fool'. Band of Clouds also play a rare gig in Cork in March - 'Cats cuts' is a great slice of fuzzy dream pop and both bands were in the Best of 2013 round up on the blog lately (so were My Pilot actually). Some brilliant Spaghetti Western cuts from Bruno Nicolai and Alessandro Alessandroni (thanks for the nod PMcD) either side of some more recent soundtrack work from John Parish . A couple of "archive" classics from Bjork's Medulla album and XTC's Apple Venus Vol 1 . (Can less then 15 years old be considered archive?) And Ezra Furman taking a page from The Modern Lovers' book, thrillingly. More on these pages as alway...