The Underground of Happiness

One of my favourite albums of recent months was the debut by Galway's Dott , Swoon , a beautiful and stirring combination of garage pop and brilliantly delivered female vocal harmonies. I had the chance to see the band play live in Cork last month too which I usually find adds value to listening to any album. This was my review of the gig for WeAreNoise . http://wearenoise.com/index.php/2013/11/dott-w-french-for-rabbits-tdc-triskel-arts-centre-cork-08-11-13/ Galway’s Dott were just setting up, a selection of multicoloured dot(t)s adorning the stage area suggestively and attractively. They came armed with debut album Swoon , although minus the official CD copies which had apparently suffered an unexpected rerouting to India. In compensation, singer Anna McCarthy announced that she had personally handmade 50 CD’s specially for the gig to go with the beautiful vinyl pacakges on the merch stall. I was soon doing some swooning of my own as one of the star vocal turns fro...

Another Irish band that's caught my ear in a big way this year is Galway's Yawning Chasm . They were a duo - Aaron Coyne and Declan Kelly - until being joined by Jimmy Monaghan on drums lately. They play a kind of plangent folk music, with slow, deliberate tempos mostly, arranged around careful electric guitar pickings and lovely synth gurglings for support. Here's a few words from a piece I did for WeAreNoise recently. http://wearenoise.com/index.php/2012/06/yawning-chasm-butterfly-crab-ep-free-download/ A quick follow-up to Rebecca’s preview of the Yawning Chasm gig that took place at Citóg in Galway last night (by the way a great night was had by all, we believe), to launch their new Butterfly & Crab EP. As Rebecca mentioned, the gig would trigger the new EP becoming available on the band’s bandcamp page, to replace the previous, and majestic, Whispered sun EP. So, you’ll find your free digital download below. These new tunes retain plenty of the previou...

The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Playlist 227 Tues June 26 2012 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 http://i.mixcloud.com/CB5Wyg Playlist Yawning Chasm - Whispered sun ( playing Citóg, Galway, June 28, w/ Brigid Power-Ryce & Raising Holy Sparks ) Mumblin Deaf Ro - Sister ill, better now ( playing Popical Island All-dayer, Whelan's, Dublin, July 7 ) First Aid Kit - Blue ( playing Vicar Street, Dublin, Nov 25 ) Cat Power - Ruin Clare & the Reasons - The lake Richard Hawley - Seek it ( playing Electric Picnic, Stradbally, Aug 31-Sept 2 ) Field Music - Who'll pay the bills Frankie Rose - Apples for the sun (The Go! Team remix) Hooray For Earth - Bring us closer together Markus Mehr - Barcelona waltz Elisa Luu - Il tempo di capire Dutch Unc...