The Underground of Happiness

Tracks from 16 albums I've enjoyed a lot this year so far. Enjoy x Playlist 1. Cool Ghouls – In Michoacan (Empty Cellar Records/Melodic) 2. The Chills – You’re immortal (Fire) 3. Buffet Lunch – Red apple happiness (Upset The Rhythm) 4. Cathal Coughlan – Falling out North Street (Dimple Discs) 5. St Vincent – Down and out (Loma Vista) 6. El Michels Affair feat Piya Malik – Murkit gem (Big Crown Records) 7. Shannon Lay – Wild (Sub Pop) actually released in 2019 but heard for the first time by me this year… 8. Craig Fortnam – Ark (Onomatopoeia Records) 9. Lucy Gooch – Rain’s break (Fire) 10. Mark Fry – Song for Wilde (Now-Again Reserve Records) (reissue) 11. Marina Allen – Belong here (Fire) 12. yumbo – A house (Morr Music) 13. Colleen – Implosion-Explosion (Thrill Jockey) 14. Adrian Crowley – Bread and wine (Chemikal Underground) 15. Lambchop – Chef’s kiss (Merge/City Slang) 16. Ann Scott - Sweetheart

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...

There’s something about duets, and something extra about husband and wife duets. This week we had the new song from The Saxophones , another gorgeous/unsettling dream pop number straight out of a David Lynch soundtrack. Then later one of the classics of the genre, Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin with the lesser known yang to the yin of 'Je t’aime'. And Dean & Britta with what is probably a homage to Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra/Suzi Jane Hokom and isn’t that just fine. Other than that some sumptuous cuts from The Clientele, Hater and This is the Kit . And wonderful Russian film music from 1975 from Mikael Tariverdiev . 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 461 Tues Sept 26 2017 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm) UCC 98.3FM listen live on the web...

First show back after the August holiday and we’re working through a bit of a backlog but that can be good. Russian soundtrack maestro Mikael Tariverdiev , a great melancholic string swoon. Colleen , a beautiful Moog-based kosmische. Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra , wonderful quixotic orchestral shapes. Ariel Pink , glorious lovelorn jangle pop. And The Clientele , adding brass to a sunset Byrdsian sound quite brilliantly. 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 458 Tues Sept 5 2017 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 goo.gl/tt2fiQ Playlist Colleen – November Lali Puna - Two windows Andromeda Mega Express Orchestra – Vula ( playing Musikbrauerei, Berlin, Oct 14 ) Diagnos -...

Sometimes a plainly gorgeous piece of music is enough. Other times the softly muted fanfare of brass like the beloved sound of Eric Matthews can make all the difference. No sense of Mr Matthews’ baroque flourishes here though. More akin to some of The Byrds’ subtler experiments. Around the Younger than yesterday album when David Crosby in particular struck out on a tantalising dreamy limb before heading off into the sunset. There’s a distinct domestic feel. An idyll. As Alisdair MacLean details a daily routine around Silver Street and singing strings buoy up every word. It amounts to a kind of soaring chamber pop as poignant as it is uplifting.

As if any excuse was needed, we had some great Esquivel to open the show this week on top of the signature tune of the show of course. It really is music guaranteed to put a spring in your step. After that we had some beautiful new music from The Clientele , back with a new album and sounding brilliantly atmospheric. A twilight kind of sound. Michael Nau and Harry Nilsson tend to remind one of each other so good to hear them together. Late night melancholy crooning par excellence. Superior ambient drones from Portland's Golden Retriever . Wonderful Indian inflected folk music from Yorkston Thorne Khan . And Brona McVittie from County Down with some beautiful harp work in a rarefied folk setting. 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 453 Tues June 27 2017 11.00am-12.00pm (repea...

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 ...

Sublime, wistful, stoic American folk and country instrumentals and no greater antidote could you find this weather to the oily pantomime of Trump. The album was informed by (back) road trips around the US over the last few years and there is a motorik pulse to be found in tunes like ‘I’m gonna live forever (If it kills me)’ and the synth drone of ‘Kingdom of Jones’. There’s a glorious ambient hum at work in tracks like ‘Gone clear’ and ‘The Great Unwind’. The tunes are maybe sombre but always hopeful, looking up, often uplifting and inspiring. Tyler’s mastery of the surge and drift of these wordless songs (instrumentals being no longer sufficient at this point) is a constant joy. There is a sense in them that familiar caricatures of the US are not to be trusted, a reminder that numerous nooks and crannies exist in Americana (as in America) that are beneath the radar of stereotype. Another absolute triumph for pop music and humanity. Modern Country by William Tyler...

Part 3 of this epic poem, and I hope your year's been good so far. We're at a faster clip (tempo basically) for this section, there's something about these songs that shows some kind of urgency, people in a hurry, on some kind of mission maybe. And it strikes me that few things in life are more exciting to me than pop music with progressive tendencies. What exactly this means we can debate but wrapping a pop tune around a literary/unexpected/twisted lyric or conceptual idea raises the genre to a higher artform. Or building a classic rock guitar riff then undercutting it with a kosmische synth. Or steeping a song in jazz influences only to strap a motorik backbeat onto it. Or...well you get the gist. Enjoy. ************************************************************************************************ 1. Ezra Furman – Restless year (from the album Perpetual motion people , Bella Union) Fantastic opening gambit from the lipsticked one’s current albu...

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.

Progressive pop is a great and neglected genre. What is it exactly? Well The Phoenix Foundation are certainly contributing, all itchy rhythms and instrument washes. As are The Drink , with cascades of guitars and banks of fantastic vocals. G Rag und Die Landlergschwister paying tribute to Moondog with stirring brass band shapes. And the man himself making small music epic and full of emotion. JR Green , a pair of gobby Scottish teenage brothers with ace tunes. HeCTA doing great things with beats and brass and Kurt Wagner's hangdog croon. And beautiful drone folk from Owensie's new album, brilliantly locating the overlap between José Gonzalez and Elliot Smith. More on the blog. Oct 20 2015 w/ The Drink,Owensie,Moondog, G Rag, JR Green, Joanna Newsom,HeCTA, De Lux++ by The Underground Of Happiness on Mixcloud The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundof...

Some notable new music this week from - The Chills , 1st studio album in almost 20 years but sounding as vital as ever Deerhunter , from the new album, gorgeous prismatic psych pop The Drink , 2nd album also upcoming, wonderful skewed guitar pop. Then somewhat of a glorious vocal interlude midway featuring - The Lewis Sisters , bringing jazz standards into the stratosphere The Free Design , sunshine, baroque, lysergic vocals intertwined Stereolab , taking on the thread with added monster motorik grooves. And HeCTA , great cut up electronic dance music. More on the blog. Sept 22 2015 w/ Blank Realm,The Drink,Free Design,Stereolab,Chills,HeCTA,Deerhunter++ by The Underground Of Happiness on Mixcloud The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 370 Tues Sept 22 2015 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesdays 8.30...

A beautiful blast of intellectual fury from Patrick Stickles and friends. This is one of those rare instances when you need the lyric video to get the full visceral benefit. The righteous anger in Stickles’ vocal delivery will be immediately apparent but check the self-motivating thrust and burgeoning ego of this passage which would fly straight past the naked ear. I don’t chase after clocks or calendars I bow down not to masters, gods nor managers Cause all the greatest artists they were amateurs Unembarrassed dressed in only bandages There’s a distinct literary sensibility lurking in those roars and pummelling backbeats, high brow masquerading as low brow. Stickles here is the US Shane McGowan, slayer of the American dream.

The new Titus Andronicus tune is a tour de force of controlled fury, shout singing brought to new levels of insight and intelligence. Essential. John Cale with a great memory from 1974, chaos nagging at the edges of sweet melody. And Courtney Barnett giving a great litany of modern day lameness. The beautiful mariachi touch of Jon DeRosa ; the gorgeous pedal steel sweep of Tandem Felix ; the lush soul of Laetitia Sadier and the soulful psych of Vinyl Williams . The compelling psych drift of Todd Tobias and Death & Vanilla making glorious psych pop. More on the blog. May 5 2015 w/ John Cale,Titus Andronicus,Laetitia Sadier,Vinyl Williams,Death & Vanilla,Todd Tobias+ by The Underground Of Happiness on Mixcloud The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 354 Tues May 5 2015 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated...

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...