The Underground of Happiness

Some notable shows coming up, reflecting much of the music on this week's show. Stars of the Lid are back in Ireland for the first time in 10 years, they play Triskel Christchurch in Cork at the weekend in what should be an epic gig. Trashcan Sinatras have announced a November gig at The Workman's Club in Dublin, it's also about 10 years for them if I'm not mistaken. One of my favourite bands, and their new album is another set of lush, swooning pop songs. windings are in Coughlan's in Cork this month on the back of a new album, A Dyjecinski is on a UK tour this month, Alien Ensemble are also across the continent in November. And there's Cool Ghouls , they were in Europe recently, but is there a better cosmic Americana (read psych pop) sound around at the moment than this? More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theunderground...

We were talking last month about a new album due out on Erased Tapes , the self-titled debut from A Winged Victory for the Sullen , the collaboration between Stars of the Lid founder Adam Wiltzie and L.A. pianist Dustin O'Halloran . That's a band name which could go either way, ambitious or pompous, depending on the content of the music. You can test the question now by listening to it in full on this link. A Winged Victory For The Sullen (EXCLUSIVE FULL ALBUM STREAM) by erasedtapes You'll notice early on that it's completely instrumental and conducted at a moderate to slow pace. I think it's a monumental piece of work, personally. It feels like it has the power to divide the world between the time before you heard it, and the time since. There's a kind of floating, unearthly beauty about it. Starting immediately with the plangent piano chords of We played some open chords and rejoiced... . And the strings with ambient soundscape melancholia of Requi...

As a follow up to the recent news about the new album by A Winged Victory for the Sullen on Erased Tapes , here's a video teaser for the album just released. It features footage from a recording session at the DDR Studios in Berlin , no less. A Winged Victory For The Sullen – DDR Studios Trailer from Erased Tapes on Vimeo . And with a little bit of digging, it turns out that music is taken from the second track to be released from the upcoming album. It's called Requiem for the Static King Part One . Listen to it in full here. A Winged Victory For The Sullen - Requiem For The Static King Part One by erasedtapes Seriously, on the basis of just two tracks, this album is shaping up to be one of the highlights of the year.

We always look forward to e-mails from Erased Tapes here at UOH HQ, but a particularly nice one arrived today. Have a listen here while reading below - rather than make up a load of other stuff, I've just copied the very well written press release. It makes more sense anyway, because there's a bit of a backstory, which you'll notice includes the late Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) , as well as Peter Broderick , two of the people we love most in music. A Winged Victory For The Sullen – Steep Hills Of Vicodin Tears by erasedtapes CONTENT: ‘ A Winged Victory For The Sullen’ is the first installment of the new collaboration between Stars Of The Lid founder Adam Wiltzie and L.A. composer Dustin O’Halloran . The duo agreed to leave the comfort zone of their home studios and develop the recordings with the help of large acoustic spaces, hunting down a selection of 9ft grand pianos that had the ability to deliver extreme sonic low end. Other traditional instrumentation was...