The Underground of Happiness

Keep the pop gems coming in this wet steamy summer. Playlist Mambo Noir Trio – Matador (Oona Records) Laurence Pike – Dance of the earth (The Leaf Label) Kingo Dia Ntotila – Mutwashi (Fancy Cat Remix) (Pussyfoot Records) Purple Mountains – Margaritas at the mall (Drag City) Bananagun – Do yeah (Full Time Hobby) Corey King – Fertility filter (Def Pressé) Cross Record – The fly (Ba Da Bing) Alasdair Roberts – The evernew tongue (Drag City) Drahla – Pyramid Estate (Captured Tracks) Gruff Rhys – Pang (Rough Trade) Hochzeitskapelle – Sonido Amazonico (Gutfeeling Records/Broken Silence) Manu Louis – Internet (Igloo Records) Mermaidens – I might disappear (Flying Nun) Sarathy Korwar – Bol (The Leaf Label) Band of Holy Joy – Electric pilgrims Terry – Spud (Upset The Rhythm) Twen – Damsel (Frenchkiss Records) Cabogato – Drive on dust (Hidden Shoal) Solo Collective – By the tower, at nightfall (Nonostar Records) Dubi Dolczek – Tangerine Moon (Stolen Body Re...

A playlist for summer. Sunshine. Heatwave. (We've been having that around this neck of the woods.) When the heat does things to you. Changes your brain. Makes everything blurry. So it shimmers. Enjoy. Kacy & Clayton – The light of day (New West Records) Gene Clark – Why not your baby (A&M Records) The Byrds – Wild Mountain Thyme (Columbia) Jess Williamson – I see the white (Mexican Summer) Naim Gabriel Amor – Just before revelation (Vacilando ’68) Kamasi Washington – The Space Traveller’s Lullaby (Young Turks) Esquivel – My blue heaven (RCA) Ennio Morricone feat. Edda Dell’Orso – Una spiaggia a mezzogiorno (from the soundtrack of the film Vergogna Schifosi) (Ariete) LWW – CTP (radio edit) (The Leaf Label) Szun Waves – Constellation (The Leaf Label) Kody Nielson – Bic’s birthday (Flying Nun) Os Mutantes – Bat macumba (Polydor) Malena Zavala – If it goes (Yucatan Records) Tenniscoats – Ende (Alien Transistor) The Saxophones – Aloha (Full Ti...

A playlist from the first half of 2017. Some were reissued this year. One is an extract from a longer piece. Most will be familiar if you're a regular listener. Part 2 of this selection comes up next week. Say hello to Laetitia and friends. Enjoy. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 456 Tues July 18 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/73FkiB Playlist The Comet Is Coming – March of the rising sun ( playing Liverpool Psych Fest, Sept 23 ) Snapped Ankles – Jonny Guitar calling Gosta Berlin Percolator – Crab Supernova Golden Retriever – Pelagic tremor Matthew Bourne – Isotach The Roger Webb Sound – Moon bird (English Weather compilation) Kamasi Washington – Truth (extract) G...

In a way this is the sound of the past. The mid 1980s. Flying Nun Records. A hazy but thrilling jangle. A band of women. Insouciance. Nostalgia can be beautiful. But another way of looking at it (or listening to it) is that this is the sound of now. Psychedelic pop with gauzy back of the room harmonies. Without this the likes of Warpaint wouldn’t exist. In the 80s they operated in a parallel world to The Pixies. One where they used flutes. A more democratic one, maybe. The yang to the yin of The Chills. That fed into all kinds of what was known as indie. A wonderful uncaring looseness. They also call it unselfconscious. With some hard to pinpoint connection to The Go Betweens. A glorious thing to sustain you in hard times.

Slowdive have a first new album in over 20 years. It's great and picks up seamlessly from where they left off. We heard from it and from their shoegaze confreres of the 80s/90s Cocteau Twins , the magnificent swirl of the album Heaven or Las Vegas . The charmingly named Snapped Ankles (pic) have released track 2 and it's another stonking piece of strident electro, not without melody and other intrigue however. Another gorgeous Flying Nun memory from their reissue of Look Blue Go Purple ; new music from This Is The Kit , a beautiful kosmische jam; The Magnetic Fields with memoir, Stonewall riots, feather boas, Serge Gainsbourg, Judy Garland and irresistible tunes. And Manu Louis with a twisted kind of fairground funk with some brass band looney tunes thrown in which is wonderful. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness ...

Some Flying Nun news this week. Dunedin band Look Blue Go Purple reissue 3 x 80s EPs through the legendary NZ label. It's juicy jangly and swoonsome psych pop. Howe Gelb is back on tour, bringing Lonna Kelley and Naim Amor for company. Expect sumptuous lounge tones with to die for smoky vocals and from Naim a French jazz meets Tucson swing. Also getting the reissue treatment is Bert Jansch on Earth Recordings . We took the title track from his wonderful final studio album The black swan (2006). C Duncan is on tour around now. Transcendental vocal magic. And Whyte Horses making genius thrilling psych pop. 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 445 Tues May 2 2017 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm) UCC 98.3FM listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/983fm *liste...

Two bands from down under who burst through in the 1980s to start the show. The Moles have a new album out, it's great. From The Chills we heard from their 1986 album on Flying Nun , Kaleidoscope world, their album last year was a brilliant and thoroughly authentic update on the 1980s sound. The singular sound of Xylouris White who play Cork in October as part of the Jazz Festival (my kind of jazz). Syrinx , the kosmische sound of the Toronto early 70s underground, a beautiful thing. Nathan Bowles , making banjo swing and swoon. And Barry McCormack , the ex Jubilee Allstars man has a new album out, a rollicking folk rock set with a scathing eye on his home city of Dublin. Like The Fall, always the same, always different. 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 416 Tues Sept 27 2016 11....

One of the more heartwarming returns of recent years in (let’s call it) popular music is the story of Martin Phillipps and The Chills , who are contenders for most cruelly underappreciated band in the history of the world. This piece by Michael Hann from The Guardian last year does excellent justice to Phillipps’ rollercoaster backstory (although the quoted paragraph does contain one glaringly debatable statement which I’ll come back to). http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/24/the-chills-martin-phillipps-comeback “In the late 80s, the Chills were one of the groups most likely to. After several years of adored singles, EPs and one album on New Zealand’s Flying Nun records – which made the proper charts there, and gained a devoted cult audience in the northern hemisphere – they’d signed to Warner Brothers. Their first album for Warner, 1990’s Submarine Bells, was critically adored, with a single – Heavenly Pop Hit – that was all over radio. But by the time its hit-and-m...

New music this week from The Doomed Bird of Providence , an English-based folk ensemble who play the songs of Mark Kluzek , an Australian who has been researching his native country's early colonial history for some years and translating it compellingly into song. The new You brought the knife EP traces the life of one Maria Murray, a former slave and convict who forged a new life down under, amid rugged strings and brilliant no nonsense colloquial vocals. Qluster (yes with a Q) is Hans Joachim Roedelius with Onnen Bock and Armin Metz all on piano making gorgeous meditative music which still retains an ambient undercurrent. New/old guitar instrumental from William Tyler , his first EP is reissued on Merge. Laetitia Sadier tours the UK this month, anyone there should check out her sublime cosmic soul from the last album. Virginia Wing are at Liverpool Psych Fest in September, another great live band from what I've heard. The Jean Paul Sartre Experience , classic Flying ...

Another extended show this week, great to have time to pull out a few old treasures, along with the huge backlog of excellent recent releases, plus music from acts on tour in the autumn. The former category, 'Bonnie & Clyde' by Serge & Brigitte , that inspired and ageless slice of psych pop with the best ever "woo-hoo" in pop music (the giddy playfulness between them is a lovely subtext); Donnie & Joe Emerson , two Oregon farming brothers making bedroom pop sound fucking essential in 1979; and Cluster making pastoral, sky-gazing kosmische. The latter category, Amen Dunes , bringing their beautiful 1000 yard drones to Ireland this month; likewise Sean Nicholas Savage (pic), gorgeous bedroom soul from Montreal; SlowPlaceLikeHome , fuzzy and warm electronica from Donegal; Tennis , heart-melting white soul. And Pye Corner Audio , bringing the autobahn compellingly to English underground pop. Sept 9 2014 Hr 1 w/ Serge & Brigitte,Amen Dunes,Sean ...