The Underground of Happiness

Another stream of great new music this week. The 2nd Melt Yourself Down album is just out, another marvellous set of space jazz funk. Another track from the Dieterich & Barnes album (pic), delirious improv instrumentals. Holy Fuck back with some great punk funk. Orchestra of Spheres with tricky shapeshifting psych grooves. A couple of lovely looped tropical cuts from Aries and Maria Usbeck . The 2nd Kevin Murphy album, superior wracked songwriting. And The Moles , new music from them for the first time in years, beautiful bittersweet jangle pop. More on these pages as always. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 401 Tues May 10 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 https://goo.gl/2S966D Playl...

This debut album by a young woman from Christchurch in New Zealand (or possibly nearby Lyttleton, depending on your reading of the bio) came out towards the end of last year and is one of the releases of 2014 without any doubt in my mind. In fact, I’d go so far as to say this album will be up there for best of the decade come 2019. http://www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.ie/2014/12/best-of-2014-part-1-folkrootscountry.html And talk about setting the bar high from the word go. The opening song ‘Stop your tears’ is one of those spellbinding musical moments, so memorable you might remember where you were and what you were doing when you first heard it. It has a slightly gothic, debauched feel to it - ”I keep the pills inside an urn”, “Baudelaire in the afternoon” – in among the haunting, ghostly atmosphere of some of the most memorable backing vocals ever committed to tape. ‘Hunter’ follows and lifts the tone, a hearty strummed singalong with rousing fiddle, sounding ...

A couple of blinding folk records I've been enjoying in the past week or so. Aldous Harding is a young woman from Christchurch in New Zealand who sings ghostly, gripping folk songs, murder ballads and such, using not much more than an acoustic guitar and her unique voice. She may be young but the songs have an ancient quality. Stunning. Also great is the new Elephant Micah , plangent tales of the world at large feat. forests, 4-legged creatures and the unmistakeable backing vocals of Will Oldham . A couple of token Christmas tunes, but a little off the beam. Gruff Rhys imagining Christmas post apocalypse, a la Cormac McCarthy but as heard through T-Rex, sort of. And Tex Ritter , combining western swing with some social sensibility, a surprisingly apt combination it turns out. Some furious Krautrock from Faust and also their Austrian friends Villalog . New Alasdair Roberts , glorious, some old This is the Kit , who play Ireland this week, lovely trancelike folk. And t...