The Underground of Happiness

A little spiritual music for Easter week... ...ranging from the meditational to the flippant, the playful to the otherworldly, gospel to kosmische. Enjoy. 7 Susanna & The Magical Orchestra – Hallelujah Homer Quincy Smith – I want Jesus to walk with me Edward Williams – Japanese macaques: Warm baths in a snowscape (from the soundtrack of the tv series Life on Earth) Scott Walker – Angels of ashes Cluster – Sowiesoso (So not so so) Silver Apples – Seagreen serenades Bruce Haack – Cherubic hymn The Beach Boys – Transcendental meditation Dirty Projectors & Bjork – On and ever onward Nick Cave & Warren Ellis – The road (from the soundtrack of the film The road) Howe Gelb – Paradise here abouts Gospel Artistics – Lord is it The Velvet Underground – Jesus Dylan Thomas – Do not go gentle into that good night John Cale – Do not go gentle into that good night (live) Nina Simone – I shall be released Richard Osborn – Monastery Alela Diane & Ryan France...

Less music on the show this week, purely because several tracks were longer. For example, 11 minutes odd for two great rambling pieces of kosmische from Yo La Tengo , one from the new album Fade , sung by James McNew, and one from 2000's And then nothing turned itself inside out sung by Ira and Georgia. Brilliant and great to hear them in what sounds to me like top form. Also, two Choice Prize nominees in the shape of 2012 show favourites Mumblin' Deaf Ro and windings ; beautiful cinematic classical music from Michael Price (new on Erased Tapes, pictured below) and Matthew Bourne (2012); a devilishly catchy Wussy remix; Goat and Os Mutantes rubbing up against each other; and more Lord Huron , sounding a bit like Paul Simon 's Graceland transplanted to the US west coast - in other words, very nice indeed. As always, more info on these pages. In particular, check the recent Best of 2012 posts for full details on those selections. Jan 15 2013 show w/ Mumblin' Deaf ...

And finally Part 5. Orchestral/Prog/Classical/Choral are the topics under discussion (again, some of these could well find better homes in one of the other links, but who’s counting?). Best of 2012 Part 5 - all info on this and other 4 parts at theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com by Theundergroundofhappiness on Mixcloud The Sea and Cake – On and on Sam Prekop and friends returned with a characteristically lovely album of progressive pop adorned by hushed vocals last year, and none better than this infectious little number. The Great Balloon Race – Medicated hope Another very promising Cork band that I came to know for the first time last year, and who released their debut album in December. This tune takes some of the same influences as Prekop – the jerky, jazzy kind – and twists them into a fantastically catchy, restless, beat-driven thing. You’d never know they were huge King Crimson fans, really. One of the band’s singers, Marcus Gordon, spoke to me (as did The Alte...

The first show of the new year. A couple of new songs, but mostly recapping on a fantastic year of music. I seem to say that every year but 2012 does seem to have been a particularly good year in fairness. If you flick through the recent podcasts/posts, you'll see I've compiled close to 80 of my favourite songs from the year. So quite a lot. (And by the way, the final post in the review of the year is on the way shortly.) The new songs were Lord Huron - drawing on Paul Simon's Graceland very nicely - and the new single from the great Yo La Tengo . The rest was a Best of 2012 rundown. For more details on all of those, check the recent posts here. Jan 8 2013 show feat. Lord Huron, Yo La Tengo + more Best of 2012 selections by Theundergroundofhappiness on Mixcloud The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Playlist 248 Tues Jan 8 2013 11.00am-12.00p...

Some more highlights from a year of music. This year, I decided not to cut things down to size, so there’s a bit more in this round up than usual. So I’ve split them up into four mixes/podcasts. Part 1a was posted the other day, dealing with the first half of the year. The genre headings for the podcasts are a bit arbitrary and loose overall, but some kind of general guide. Or you can listen to tracks separately below. This one I’m calling Ambient/Tropical/RnB , for want of better vaguely misleading tags. The Underground of Happiness Best of 2012 Part I by Theundergroundofhappiness on Mixcloud Elisa Luu – FlussiGirl / Markus Mehr – Barcelona waltz Two very interesting European electronic artists, both on the Australian Hidden Shoal label. That’s how I found them and I’ve been playing them on the show now for a couple of years, since their last albums. I love what they do. Here’s some blog from the middle of the year. http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.ie/2012/07/elisa-l...

You'll be aware that Record Store Day 2012 happened last Saturday, April 21st. To mark the day, I participated in a special outside broadcast with my UCC 98.3FM station colleague Stephen Purcell at Plugd Records in Cork. That's the one independent record retailer in Cork city, one of only a handful in the whole country. And Plugd are also just now celebrating the 1st anniversary of their move to the current premises, at Triskel Arts Centre on Tobin St. Steve and myself were just two of a number of different DJ's playing in the shop throughout the day. Here are a few words I put together about the day in Plugd for We Are Noise - it was a most heartwarming event, I must say. http://wearenoise.com/index.php/2012/04/record-store-day-at-plugd-records-apr-21-2012/ You can also check back on the ob with this podcast - it's mostly made up of music, not too much talking, the likes of The Kinks, Tangerine Dream, Paul McCartney and Bouts from Steve; I had some Peaki...

Just in case it gets lost in the Christmas haze, the promised podcast for the recent Smile Special is now available. The special guest for the show was my UCC 98.3FM colleague Stephen Purcell and you can read Stephen's accompanying article on the background to the Smile sessions, as well as plenty of other Beach Boys and Brian Wilson related discussion, on this link. Enjoy and compliments of the season. http://www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/12/beach-boys-smile-special.html Smile Pod by Underground of Happiness3

The Underground Of Happiness Xmas Special Dec 6 2011 by underground of happiness2 I thought I'd put a bit more flesh on the bones of the Christmas Special , this week's show, which was also the 200th episode of The Underground of Happiness . That's the wave form above (apologies for the delay before Hank Snow , the CD player was acting up). I've stuck in a few extra tunes and links as well below, just for the craic. Merry December everybody. 1. Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby please come home) My personal favourite from what is probably the definitive Christmas album in pop music, Phil Spector's 1963 classic of the genre. Put aside the irony of a Jewish man celebrating the main Christian holiday (Spector was reportedly tickled at the idea of the royalties that Irving Berlin , also Jewish, raked in for White Christmas ). Forget the schmaltz of Spector's monologue on Silent Night . Focus on the brilliantly simple between-the-eyes lyrics of Ellie Greenwi...

The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed Best of 2010 Podcast *in most cases, you'll find album and label details for these in the "best of 2010"  post   *d'load this podcast at http://rapidshare.com/files/437128544/UOH_Best_of_2010_Podcast.mp3 Playlist   Frankie Rose & the Outs - Candy Field Music - Measure  Future Islands - Tin man Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Round and round Caribou - Odessa Peter Broderick - Part I: Discovery (from the soundtrack of the dance piece Congregation ) Toro y Moi - Leave everywhere Wildbirds & Peacedrums - Fight for me Bjork & Dirty Projectors - On and ever onward Joanna Newsom - '81 CocoRosie - Hopscotch Boxharp - The green Sone Institute - On tree hill She & Him - Over it over again Oh No Ono - Swim Secret Cities - Boyfriends The Chap - Pain fun Seeland - Black dot, white spider Darren Hayman & the Secondary Modern feat. Emmy the Great - Calling out your name again Dum Dum Gi...