The Underground of Happiness

A wonderful return for ex-Cardiacs man William D Drake joined by friends from North Sea Radio Orchestra and Stars in Battledress among others, combining folk threads with medieval, British dancehall, sea shanties and avant garde musics. You’ll be hard pushed to restrain yourself when you hear opener ‘Distant buzzing’ with an irresisitible stomping rhythm lead by a winning sax honk and endearingly antique lyrics by Mr James Kelsey-Fry. Thereafter, enjoy the shanty swing with melodica of ‘Lifeblood’, the startling slave mutiny anthem ‘Heart of oak’ and the meditative medieval choral atmosphere of ‘Be here steryear’ with Drake’s constantly searching wrongfooting piano chords. ‘The Catford Clown’ comes on like a modern day madrigal, twirling melodies and undefined time signatures, until the breakdowns near the end which countenance heavy metal. By flirting with the spectre of ‘the novelty song’ the scathing satire of the lyric and wonderful instrumental technique are thinly an...

Brothers James and Richard Larcombe , who make up Stars in Battledress , take elements of folk music, English music hall, classical and minimalism to make an adventurous pop brand all their own. Sharing vintage keys and guitars, they flit from uplifting to sinister to primal at the drop of a hat. James plays with North Sea Radio Orchestra and William D Drake (also Craig Fortnam, see this review ) and those groups would give a fair idea of the kind of richness of melody and innovative song structures you can expect here. It ends up as quixotic as Van Dyke Parks, with something too of the heartfelt restlessness of Apple Venus -era XTC. The latter is certainly present in my own personal favourite, ‘Fluent English’, a plangent piano tune with a panoramic melody and an intellectual lyrical sweep. *I also love the Wicker Man -esque ‘Hunt the button’ and the scathing ‘Buy one now’, an antidote to consumerism in the cunning guise of an advertising jingle. 'Fluent Engl...