The Underground of Happiness

Happy New Year everyone again, for everyone just joining us. The first show of 2013 was one last look back to my favourite music of last year, most of the playlist drawing on my Best of 2013 posts on the blog lately (see posts on right of page). Within that, I tried to fit in some stuff that hadn't been on the show as much last year. So great cuts from Kevin Murphy, The Would Be's, Howe Gelb feat Will Oldham and Screaming Maldini . Special mention for Rocket Girl who issued their 100th release last year - wonderful label that. There were also September Girls and Jacques Caramac (RG) whose albums come out this month. And still room for a few old treasures from Lee Hazlewood & Ann Margret (seriously, check the sleeve on that record, it's a hoot), The Kinks ('Dead end street', a recession song, don't you know) and one of my faves Petula Clark ('I know a place' was the follow up to the peerless 'Downtown' in 1965, also co-written with...

The last freestyle show before the summer recess (the next two weeks will be special or compilation formats - a Round-up of the year so far next week and a Love Songs set the week after). Folk was hot this week - Plankton Wat (sun-baked variety), Peter Delaney (middle of the night, ukulele style), Oliver Cole doing some great woo hoos, even Grumbling Fur (pictured), adding a psych/electronic twist to something very English sounding. Screaming Maldini I can't get enough of lately, there's a touch of a High Llamas influence in there, good to see the baton passing to another generation. The new Liam Singer album is also brilliant, an intriguing chamber pop, we had a track from that. Nils Frahm changing tack a little, doing something like techno without the beats. And for Belle & Sebastian fans, Hero & Leander - a brilliantly conceived love song told through blue eyed soul. More on these pages as usual. July 16 2013 w/ Oliver Cole,Peter Delan...

Completely irresistible orchestral pop from this Sheffield band who are new to me but there's always room for something this good. The tune has a swooping, key changing quality reminiscient of High Llamas at their peak, strapped on to...well, something baroque from another time, harp glissandos and everything. That might make it sound a little sedate. It isn't. It reaches a belting crescendo liable to blow you as high as the balloon in the video and there's a searing synthesised guitar solo which is 70s AM rock all over. Finally, the singer - whose name is Gina I believe - has a wonderfully light delivery, even among the thrilling massed choir backing. You really need this in your life.

We started the show with the story of two gigs - O Emperor , who play next week in Cork, on the back of their brilliant, classy second album Vitreous ; and The National , who played in Cork last weekend, promoting their brilliant, slowburning 6th Trouble will find me . The main event of the show was a piece of an interview with Brian from Dublin band Halves , whose 2nd album comes out this month - it's great too (full podcast of that interview on the way). What else? Some jaunty jazz from Krzysztof Komeda (pictured below) taken from the soundtrack to Roman Polanski's film Knife in the water (see Trunk Records for details on that); beautiful airy ambient electronica from Jumpel ; a knock-out falsetto with glitch beats combination from Baths ; soaring orch-pop from Screaming Maldini ; and shape-shifting math-pop from V.O. . And we finished with some boogie from Brother JT because there's always room for some boogie. July 2 2013 w/ O Emperor,The National,Halves...