The Underground of Happiness

Tunes. To take stock. Hibernate. Consolidate. Elucidate. Funny old world. Stick with the noise. Enjoy. Playlist Slow Moving Clouds – Karelian (from the soundtrack of Loch na hEala/Swan Lake ) Owen Tromans – A dialogue (Sacred Geometry) Gene Clark – No other (Remaster, 4AD) Aoife Nessa Frances – Here in the dark (Basin Rock) Skinshape – I didn’t know (Big Crown Records) Charles Rumback & Ryley Walker – Half joking (Thrill Jockey) OTTO – Roter teppich (Bureau B) Hochzeitskapelle – Sonido Amazonico (Gutfeeling Records/Broken Silence) Lal & Mike Waterson – Red wine promises (Domino) Bananagun – Out of reach (Full Time Hobby) Holy Hive feat Shannon Wise – Golden crown (Big Crown Records) Keeley Forsyth – Debris (The Leaf Label) Craven Faults – Deipkier (The Leaf Label) Caribou – Home (Merge) Percolator – Freshin (Penske Recordings) Rothko – The day before the day after your death (Trace Recordings) Rachael Dadd – Arrows (Memphis Industrie...

*Dedicated to LK who loves autumn* Autumn. Fall. I’ve been threatening to do one of these for a while. What are autumn songs? What is autumn music? There are the ones that reference autumn explicitly. Leaves. Wind. Rain. Colours. Sun lower in the sky. Those unforgettable moons. But beyond that there’s the metaphor of time passing. A certain mood. The beginning of the end of something. That can still be beautiful. Lots of music taps into this well for its atmosphere. A certain meditative quality might be in it. A contemplation of something. Maybe nostalgia. Often a minor key. Or at least bittersweet. (Possibly related – many of the tracks here feature woodwind. Flutes. Clarinets. Double recorder. The force of breath? There’s even the sighing of an accordion. And a harmonica.) There might even be spirits involved. Souls. Halloween. Contact with another world. Or like birds taking off for warmer climates some kind of migration. Transformation. Death or decay...

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...

Some events happening which tie in this week. Gene Clark died 25 years ago this year. The very good people at Young Hearts Run Free are putting on a tribute event in Dublin next month featuring a host of people playing GC songs. Should be great. Slow Moving Clouds start a short Irish tour this w'end in Cork - go. Julia Kent is back in Dublin next month also, cellos all round. Other than that, if you're in the UK you can check Aldous Harding, Nadia Reid, Anna von Hausswolff, Kathryn Joseph in the next while - spoiled ye are over there. And JC Vannier rules of course. I'm sure he's not at all inconsolable, contrary to what Lake Ruth would have us believe. 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 399 Tues Apr 26 2016 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm) UCC ...

I had a hankering for some Gene Clark (happens quite often) so we had the nailed-on classic that is ‘Echoes’ to start the show this week, from his first solo album (with The Gosdin Brothers) after leaving The Byrds. A brilliant, kind of fluttering arrangement. We had K-X-P back – kraut disco, they’re calling it – and the very spiky, English post-punk Savages . Two beautiful European ambient pieces, Pieter Nooten from his remarkable double album Haven , and a new single from Jumpel , featuring memorable vocals by Chloe March. More from Little Annie & Baby Dee , with the latter on vocals unusually but superbly; the new instalment in the Collision/Detection series by Sone Institute , a particularly filthy piece of disco, 80’s gore movie-style; and Circus Devils feat. the voice of Robert Pollard, gorgeous plaintiff psych pop New singles from Daughter and Olof Arnalds . And Ra Ra Riot with the very very catchy falsetto of ‘Beta love’. Apr 9 2013 show w/ Circus Devils fe...