The Underground of Happiness

There's a few tunes there now like... Playlist Fixity – Becoming an earthworm (Penske Recordings) Spill Gold – Dali (Meduse MagiQ) Laurence Pike – Drum chant (The Leaf Label) Pozi – Watching you suffer (Prah Recordings) Drahla – Stimulus for living (Captured Tracks) Pill Fangs – Pain inside (Sunstone Records) The Pinheads – Feel it now (Stolen Body Records) Mdou Moctar – Ilana (Sahel Sounds) Death & Vanilla – A flaw in the iris (Fire Records) Rozi Plain – Conditions (Memphis Industries) Lali Puna – Being water (Morr Music) Vanishing Twin – KRK (At home in strange places) (Fire Records) Von Spar feat. Laetitia Sadier – Extend the song (Bureau B) Wand – Scarecrow (Drag City) Samsara – Yellow fangs (Tiny Room/Hidden Shoal) The Proper Ornaments – Please release me (Tapete) Dana Gavanski – One by one (Full Time Hobby) Bobby Oroza – Your love is too cold (Big Crown Roecords) Hiss Golden Messenger – Everybody needs somebody (Merge) Nilufer Yanya – Tears (Ato...

*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...

Part 3 of this epic poem, again in no particular order. And as a companion piece, check also this Best of 2016 mix which includes many of these tunes, along with a few from the upcoming Psych section, the final instalment. ************************************************************ 1. Tortoise – The Catastrophist (Thrill Jockey) Another wonderful album from Chicago’s finest and apart from anything else (the glorious hooks, the minimalist chops, the thrilling musicianship etc) a reminder of just how fucking groovy they are. Marvellous music for the brain and the feet. 2. Syrinx – Tumblers from the vault: 1970-1972 (RVNG Intl) A bolt from the blue for me and a fantastic compilation of ecstatic kosmische/dream jazz from this Toronto 3-piece. Also a thoroughly fascinating slice of the 70s underground (albeit unexpectedly accessible) and another great piece of archive work by RVNG Intl. 3. Fixity – Hungry clouds (Kantcope) Tremendous cut from the very...

Autotune on vocals is about the last thing I would put on my wish list for the next Lambchop (or any) album but when dealing with a legend like Kurt Wagner (and pals) let’s say we can give him more leeway than most. And it turns out autotune, which is appalling on all those strident belt it out vocal styles, produces a surprisingly delicate effect in the case of a subtle and restrained instrument like Wagner’s. It acts as a blink and you’ll miss it twist to his low key croon. So it adds a level of intrigue to opening track ‘In care of 8675309’, something somehow punk rock among the gorgeous lounge soul stylings. It plays up the funk on a track like ‘Old masters’, a slow and smooching dancefloor jam. And it adds deep pathos on the title track, a song with an already sad nostalgic air and undercut by softly skittering electronic beats. For the rest of the album you can drift or you can listen closely, treating it as a warm bath or an aural puzzle, a kind of shapeshift...

A spate of great gigs coming up in Cork and we played several of these bands on the show this week. Fixity , a new album conceived in Cork, recorded in Malmo and sounding like a pure beast, launches in Triskel Dec 3. The Altered Hours , "hometown" show at the Kino Dec 10, it's been too long. Also Rozi Plain , same venue the following night, all part of the Sudden Club Weekender . Great. A terrible clash but also on Dec 10 in Cobh at the Sirius Arts Centre , the return of the wonderful Slow Moving Clouds , strings and drones turned into gorgeous ambient hum. Also great music from Cool Ghouls , channelling The Byrds from 1965/6; Rothko with vocals by Johny Brown, sterling bass and voice expositions from the north of England; The Sea Nymphs , a timeless treasure from 1992, just released. And Lambchop , making autotuned vocals credible for the first time. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.th...

A couple of great new records featured this week. Hilma Nikolaisen might be best known as the bass player in Norwegian shoegazers Sereena Maneesh . Her first solo record is a brilliant combination of dreamy jangle pop and psychedelic grooves, adorned with outstanding bass playing, maybe not surprisingly. Lambchop are back with a shift in focus. Kurt Wagner has been on the autotune but it tends to work a dream with his gentle croon and on a bed of electronic clicks and coos. Also new sounds from Goat, Cory Hanson, Virginia Wing . And a treasure from Bruce Haack , inner space moog masterpiece. 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 422 Tues Nov 8 2016 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 ...

A class of a Lambchop sideproject involving Kurt Wagner, Ryan Norris and Scott Martin of that revered Nashville band turning their hands to electronic dance music, as a follow on from their CoLAB EP from 10 years ago. On the face of it, you’d be hard pushed to identify any common features with the source group, although of course Lambchop always had a strong current of soul running under its country top notes. ‘We are glistening’ has Wagner’s wonderful hangdog croon (it just never gets old) over a busy backbeat of high hats and clicks and later on a series of sumptuous brass swells. John McEntire gets a mention on the bio as an influence and it’s probably the closest the album gets to that smouldering and soulful strand of Tortoise . In fact, it’s probably the closest the album gets to that smouldering and soulful strand of Lambchop. Which is to say it’s class all over.

You may have noticed Easter happened the other week. We started this week's show with some devotional sounds, first Polar Bear from their new album (intense) then a quite odd effect from Ralph Carmichael courtesy of Trunk Records (always good for the oddness). A few near duets around the middle of the show. The sublime Vic Chesnutt with Emmylou Harris & backed by Lambchop , new music from Arborist with Kim Deal guesting and the recent release from Elephant Micah , another stunning turn with Will Oldham helping out. All under the folk umbrella, all showing great vocal chemistry. New music also from Jon DeRosa , another great duet with Carina Round from his new album; and Rozi Plain , more beautiful kosmische folk from her upcoming 3rd album. Tender Prey (pic) doing great work in the pow wow punk genre. And in advance of Record Store Day 2015 , when Fire Records reissue the first three Close Lobsters albums, 86-89. Always room on this show for superior misty-eyed jan...

Photo: Barbara Powers "When I listen to East River Pipe I not only hear beautiful melodies and words, but I also hear the personification of pure, unfettered musical thought, brought about by a commitment to concentrate solely on his craft and his art. This is the sound of a man completely focused on the task at hand, not sidetracked or swayed by any outside forces, be they record labels or any other aspect of the music industry. This is the sound of a man whose only musical relationship is that of sound to tape recorder. Because he chooses not to perform live, he further reinforces the significance of this relationship between a man’s ideas and the form in which we are able to perceive these ideas. He knows that when he makes a record that “THIS IS IT, this is all there is.” Pure. Simple. Perfect." Kurt Wagner, 1999 It must have been on the inside cover of Lambchop's 1997 album Thriller that I first saw the name FM Cornog . It was there three times. I w...

Another in the most welcome series of reissues from Merge Records to celebrate its 25th birthday. East River Pipe is the recording moniker of FM Cornog of New York and he would be the definition of cult – highly regarded by other musicians, critically acclaimed over but unknown to the majority of the population. I came across the name first, I think, through Stewart Lee’s album reviews sometime in the 1990s, and through the advocacy and cover versions of labelmate Kurt Wagner of Lambchop (Cornog’s songs have also been covered by David Byrne, The Mountain Goats, Okkervil River and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, among many others). This album was originally released in 1999 and features a host of unbeatable pop songs, unforgettable melodies and vignettes at every turn. It is also a concept album of sorts, about the automobile and its iconic place in the hearts of Americans, offering a chance of love, prestige, freedom, redemption and all sorts. These are home recordi...