The Underground of Happiness

And so the final instalment of this Best of 2015 review, which has a Soul/Dream Pop tag ostensibly but really is a collection of odds and ends left over. (Floating Points, for example, could certainly have belonged in Part 1 if I had my head on straight a few weeks ago.) These round ups are by nature a time travel exercise, some of the music here being a year old. But even since Part 1 of the review in mid-December, the world seems a very different place. It's now a post-David Bowie time, a post-Mick Lynch time, mortality comes for all of us, better get used to it. Enjoy the music while you can. ************************************************************************************************ 1. Marker Starling – Husbands (from the album Rosy Maze , Tin Angel Records) Spring 2015 was all about my obsession with this song, a glorious discovery and an enduring memory from the year. From February - There’s an automatic association for Steely Dan, I think, a kin...

We mentioned the sublime ‘Husbands’ from Mr Chris Cummings some weeks ago, that’s Marker Starling under his nom de musique. Next off the very sweet Rosy maze album is the nourishing sound of ‘Uphill battle’. Coming in with a distinct Stevie Winwood feel – with that electric piano it’s inescapable – it preserves that tone through later deceptively smooth soul stylings. Restrained brass swells, those electric piano stabs and a brilliantly offbeat chorus of backing vocals. The backing is so sweet it takes a minute for the painful lyric reflections to register – what’s at stake I can’t say but it’s more than just the vapours of unvarnished pride That same verse has the icing on the cake of a host of comforting ooh-ooh-ooh backing vocals, bringing you right into the realm of classic 60s girl group glory. It’s a low key pleasure this one but there’s a lovely slow burn quality to it that will get you through the rest of those April showers.

We had a number of great male crooners on this week's show (I feel a special coming on...), starting with Adrian Crowley , the slightly heartbroken variety, then Daniel Knox , a jauntier cabaret style, later Jon De Rosa , a classic 50s style with gravitas, and Marker Starling who comes under blue eyed soul more, with a great pathos under the smoothness. Stewart Lee has not to my knowledge sung on record before but he has now, covering Shirley Collins with Stuart Estel for a tribute album to mark her 80th year coming out on Earth Recordings for Record Store Day . Virginia Wing , making intriguing psych pop; Colleen making meditational dub sounds; Jessica Pratt , bending time with a sublime folk cut. And Moondog , the man himself making oh so sweetly challenging "classical" music with daughter June on vocals from 1970, and then his influence on Kenny Graham from 1956, which comes out like some wonderful interplanetary exotica. More on these pages. *No podca...

There’s an automatic association for Steely Dan, I think, a kind of signature sound. It’s electric piano and of course Donald Fagen’s creamy and nasal vocal tones. These are also the key touchstones in this intoxicating single from Chris Cummings of Toronto who goes under Marker Starling (he previously used Mantler ). He’s been a stalwart of the underground Toronto scene for quite a few years but I think this is the first music of his I’ve heard. Sombre electric piano chords and a fine lived-in croon (somewhat reminscient of Donald Fagen) introduce a song that seems at first to be about a semi-absurd encounter with a stag group on an airplane. However, over the course of a few short verses the focus shifts onto the protagonist himself, prompting a kind of philosophical meditation. There’s a delicious jazz-pop key change midway through with meandering vibes solo and the woodwind/reed backing rising to the fore which is followed by a distinct deviation in lyrical tone. “...

We started this week with a riff on a kosmische theme. Villalog are an Austrian duo on the Faust label Bureau B . They have plenty of motorik rhythms too but this tune has a beautiful ambient drift to it. And Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith making transcendant electronic music which manages to have a playful undercurrent, which is great. More from Noveller , Sarah Lipstate, creating epic instrumentals with one guitar. Grasscut , a kind of chamber pop with a pastoral tone. A treasure from The Go Betweens from 1984's Spring Hill Fair album (which by the way is cruelly underrated, even by Go Betweens' standards), sounding a little like Orange Juice who of course the band were friends with at the time. New Bjork , break up analysis with heartwrenching orchestrations. New This is the Kit , serene folk music with timeless drones. Two male-female duos, one Swedish, one Australian. More from Death & Vanilla (great reverb-drenched psych pop) and new from Elstow (lovely hazy dre...