The Underground of Happiness

Smith Westerns - Weekend (Weird World, from the album Dye it blonde ) It took me a while to warm to this - it actually took hearing the whole album to give it the context, with its psychedelic shades of glam - but it has a place in my heart now. Maybe it's the cavernous "oooh's" of the chorus. Or the throwaway fuzz guitar riff. Or the semi-whispered male vocal. It's all very west coast for a band from Chicago. SMITH WESTERNS "Weekend" by domino

Connan Mockasin - Forever dolphin love (Full length original) (Because Music, single) A genuinely mind-bending and envelope-pushing addition to the canon of surreal New Zealand pop. Atonal piano string arpeggios, followed by the fusion of several high-pitched synth drones, before falling away to be replaced by jam-room bass and drums introducing some lovely woozy guitars. That's just the prelude. At that point the tune kicks in with underwater atmospherics around a chillout drumbeat and high tone bass sound. Plus the vocal has an outer space character as befitting a lyric about inter-species amour. It sounds ridiculous on paper but believe me it's completely convincing in the flesh. It's intriguing, slightly haunting and makes you want to press play again and again. (Stay around for the full 10-minutes of very strange theatre below.) *As for the rest of the album, experimentation is never for its own sake or at the expense of catchy hooks. For example, the sublime tr...