The Underground of Happiness

Happy New Year. Just a quick hello to land you with a list of 46* (edit - make it 48) albums that did the rounds many times in here in the past year. Another great year for pop music, I think you'll agree. A couple of other miscellaneous highlights underneath. I'm not bothering with lots of links and pictures and videos in this post - that's what the rest of the blog is for, go digging and you'll find. Most, if not all, of the list have been represented in these pages over the last year. And I might also mention that interviews with Crystal Stilts, Efterklang, (The) Caseworker, Hotels, Josh T. Pearson and Neville Skelly from the year gone by are also over there on the right hand side of the page. I may well have left a few people out, and there were a few borderline cases - if anyone has any particular beef with me on what's below, give me a shout. I'm all on for, like, engagement. Say no more. (I'm making one exception, I can't get enough of this) ...

The interview with Texan gentleman Josh T. Pearson is available to download in full now ( 37 mins approx .) here: featuring talk of... ... church music, discovering rock 'n roll, U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday, alternate guitar tunings, the World Beard Championships, reading his own reviews, the emotional effort of recording Last of the country gentlemen and more... The interview was recorded a couple of Sundays ago in a quiet corner of the Crane Lane Theatre in Cork , shortly after Josh's gig in the same venue (though not before Josh had shared conversations with most of the audience - he is a man generous with his time and an absorbing conversationalist). He ordered coffee (cream and sugar) and orange juice. I abstained. The gig was compelling and also very enjoyable. Compelling because the songs from his current album shine an uncomfortable and very personal spotlight on himself. It bordered on some kind of psychodrama at times, one side of a confrontational dialog...

Josh T. Pearson - Last of the country gentlemen (Mute) A man struggling with the end of a relationship. One side of a dialogue between two lovers. A dramatic storyline of religious intensity and naked honesty. This album is all of these things, and some more. Including a compelling answer to the challenge of three chords and the truth. And a deconstruction of country music, using tempo changes and squalls of overlapping, fingerpicked guitar patterns. Also Thou art loosed comes on like an out-of-phase Roy Orbison, who after all was the king of break-up records. Sad songs, in this case, say so much. You need to hear this. *Interview with JTP coming soon Playing Barbican Theatre, London, November 26 (with guests tba)

So we've had our summer here in Ireland, in the shape of an Easter heatwave. Normal service has been resumed now in the shape of rain (sometimes wholehearted downpours, sometimes a cheeky drizzle, just for variety). More great music to listen to (indoors) this month, with chamber pop particularly to the fore. But you'll also find orchestral, psychedelic, garage-rock and IDM flourishes, among others, below. What's a pop music tag between friends anyway. All albums, unless otherwise noted. The Doomed Bird of Providence - Will ever pray (Front & Follow) It's quite unusual to find an album that is the result of, in effect, a research project. What a bonus when the music has a mysterious and compelling quality (although we partly guessed as much based on the band's fine eponymous EP of last year). The research in question, by singer Mark Kluzek, focuses on early Australian history and reveals harrowing tales of death and delinquency in the inhospitable tropics an...

Another one of March's favourites in the UOH cabin. Josh T. Pearson - Woman, when I've raised hell (Mute, from the album Last of the country gentlemen ) Thoroughly outstanding centrepiece from the Texan's, ex-Lift to Experience frontman's, new album. From the gripping opening line, " Woman, when I've raised hell, you're gonna know it ", you will be captivated by the wonderfully slurred delivery for the full 7 minutes. That's without mentioning the heartrending violin backing of Warren Ellis (and others) and the completely convincing dirty realist imagery - " Don't make me rule this home with the back of my hand ", " Let me quietly drink myself to sleep ". In a way, it's amazing how much drama can be wrought out of a sparse acoustic guitar, a vocal and some strings. I've listened to it about 20 times and it still sounds new every time. However you cut it, it's a compelling masterpiece. Playing Crane Lane ...

The new Josh T. Pearson album, Last of the country gentlemen on Mute, is a thing of tremendous, compelling beauty. Rugged, romantic music with a core of very adult melancholy. My wife walked through the room while it was on and asked if it was Nick Cave, and she was on to something there, in terms of the general musical terrain it covers. Plus Warren Ellis plays keening, mournful violin on it. There's a trailer here which gives a good taste of the album (and prompts the comment, "never mind your hipster goatees, now that's a beard"). http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/mpd/permalink/m2FP3YQRADM6JN/ref=ent_fb_link Pearson is an enigmatic character who you can research more fully in your own time. He was in a band called Lift to Experience who released a great album on Bella Union about 10 years ago (it was called The Texas Jerusalem Crossroads and it was also madly compelling - my good friend at Songs to Learn and Sing put me on to it at the time). Here's part of an...