The Underground of Happiness

New releases from this latest period in time. Spirals and drones. A capella and instrumentals. Walls of sound and cries for help. A piece of aural history. Enjoy the magic. Playlist Hiss Golden Messenger – I need a teacher (Merge Records) Moonchy & Tobias – Atmosfere (Hidden Shoal/Tiny Room) Murray Lightburn – To the top (Dangerbird) ALA.NI – Sha la la (ALA.NI) Alasdair Roberts – Common clay (Drag City) Boa Morte – Ships passing (Gare du Nord) Brainstory – Mnemophobia (Big Crown records) Clairo – Impossible (Caroline) Comet Gain – The institute debased (Tapete) Dana Gavanski – Catch (Full Time Hobby) Fenella – Bright curse (Fire Records) Hater – It’s a mess (Fire Records) Hochzeitskapelle – Anohito (Gutfeeling Records/Broken Silence) Joanne & Sonny – Journey (Tompkins Square) Kiwi Jr – Salary man (Mint Records) Mermaidens – Millenia (Flying Nun) Spindle Ensemble - Okemah Sundown Rachael Dadd – Cut my roots (Memphis Industries) Sean O’Hagan fea...

I gave in to list culture a few years back, so here's my contribution. In fairness, I find looking back over the year a good way of rediscovering musical highlights, refreshing the mucial memory. Plus I've tried to add a bit of depth by describing why these musical moments, albums, songs, phrases, whatever, have stayed with me. This first instalment I'm calling Folk/Roots/Country , as usual a somewhat arbitrary set of tags but broadly representative. Enjoy, the rest of the series will follow over the next couple of weeks or so (in total there will be three or four). 1. Olof Arnalds – Patience (One Little Indian) Another superb album from the Icelandic singer this year, Palme . As with all her work, there’s an endearing quirkiness to the songs but through ingenious arrangements she manages to avoid the stultifying cul de sac which is the home of many of the twee-inclined. This song has her quivering tones (not unlike Bjork in her quieter moments, in terms of p...

Originally published on WeAreNoise - http://wearenoise.com/index.php/2012/04/hiss-golden-messenger/ Some new music came our way today and we thought we’d do a little sharing. Because it’s particularly beautiful, but also because the band in question plays in Cork on May 3rd (Triskel Christchurch, also Whelan’s in Dublin on Apr 30th) (Note: The Cork gig was subsequently, and unfortuately, cancelled.). The music in question is by Hiss Golden Messenger , lead by Mike Taylor , the album Poor moon . Here’s the biog, courtesy of the record label, Tompkins Square . Hiss Golden Messenger is Durham, North Carolina-based songwriter M.C. Taylor, in partnership with multi-instrumentalist and recordist Scott Hirsch, who lives in Brooklyn, New York. The pair have been playing music together for nearly two decades. Poor Moon is the fourth proper Hiss Golden Messenger release, and serves as the best summation thus far of Taylor’s lone journeys through the dark night of the soul. “God is goo...