The Underground of Happiness

Every week the radio show is a series of mixes, usually a sequence of mini-mixes, 3 or 4 song runs put together to fill an hour. Every now and again though, a bunch of music comes together on my radar, drawn from albums sent to me as well as my own listening habits. Over the last few months I’ve noticed an amount of striking and powerful instrumental music coming together in this orbit I call The Underground of Happiness . All of this has received an airing on the show at some point, but given that I only have 1 hour per week to play with live on air, I thought it would be good to give some of this music an extra platform. Firstly, as you would expect, these are all instrumental pieces, which is to say they don’t contain vocals (although Polar Bear flirt with humming at one stage in ‘No more goodbyes’). In fact, most of these artists are what you would call either exclusively or largely instrumental artists. The cellist Julia Kent for example, exploring the outer reaches of her inst...

That time of year again when we take stock. It's good to take stock, be thankful for what you have, mourn what you miss, make plans for the future, rekindle memories. Musical memories are obviously pretty specific, conjuring up a place, a time, the people you were with, or maybe just how the music made you feel. It can even seem like music transports us back to a more innocent time. Last January really does seem like a long time ago and some of this list dates back that far. Musical memories are always personal and often completely private. This list is the first part of a four-part (probably) series. I'm a bit of a hoarder so lists tend to be long. But everything here is treasured by me. I'm calling it Kosmische/Instrumental/Soundtrack/Jazz/Dance . As usual, tags are somewhat arbitrary but let's go with those. And the tunes are in no particular order. I'm aiming for the second part of the review sometime between Christmas and New Year's if you're a di...

Epic compelling guitar soundscapes by Sarah Lipstate of Austin Texas (she originally defined herself as a guitar project although there are apparently some synths in here). The tone can turn from brooding to meditative at the flick of a wrist and it makes sense to discover that Lipstate is also a filmmaker, so assured are the switches in mood. Opener ‘Into the dunes’ creates a terrific sense of foreboding with low drones and crunching power chords edging into creeping John Carpenter territory. 'No unholy mountain' takes a prismatic psych approach to arpeggios and sound bleed which is pure gorgeousness. There’s a distinct Reichian flavour to the opening cascade of notes in ‘Rubicon’ and a great hint of Orange Juice style new wave verve about the overlapping guitar lines in ‘Sisters’. And check the lovely ambient Badalamenti haze of ‘Concrete dreams’. Whatever the mood what I particularly like about this album is the restraint - the build is measured, never force...