The Underground of Happiness

A wonderful album of drifting orchestral pop from the former Electric Soft Parade man Thomas White of Brighton and friends. It is a collection of pieces unhindered by percussion or rhythm in the conventional sense. Instead each song drifts as if free of gravity and there is very much a sense of suspension above the earth in the bed of synth rumbles and drones. Opener ‘Dust’ has immediate shades of baroque in its vocal layers and meaty chords, although that feeling is soon overtaken by spacey bleeps and whines. The atmosphere of ‘Salt in the wound’ is akin to drifting in space, with echoes and whispers and asteroid trails, before a booming church organ launches behind the words “You don’t know what love is”. It’s as if White has embarked on the ultimate interplanetary journey to escape the pain and loss of earthly existence. ‘The dream’ has an unmistakeable Beach Boys flavour, a reaching chord-shifting quality similar to something like ‘A day in the life as a tree’ from ...

The last show before the summer recess was a round up of my favourite music of 2016 so far. Cate Le Bon feeling the joy of wonky Tortoise being a delicious groove beast The Fiction Aisle making gorgeous gloomy orchestral pop A Dyjecinski making lugubrious soulful and sexy Iggy Pop, Tarwater & Alva Noto taking Walt Whitman downtown for some treatment Teho Teardo & Blixa Bargeld creating the most beautiful brooding chamber atmospheres Whyte Horses in the embrace of bouncy Franco sych pop More on these pages and watch out also for a 2nd instalment of this mid year review, coming soon. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 412 Tues July 26 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/14b...

The Fiction Aisle is a band you'll be hearing plenty about round here over the next while. It's Thomas White , ex Electric Soft Parade , of Brighton and he makes gorgeous but intriguing and often unsettling orchestral pop music. On this week's show we had his cover of a Camera Obscura tune which finds some kind of ambient rush that the original cunningly hid. Straight after was Camera Obscura themselves, always good to be reminded of their broken pop genius. Vinyl Williams with some great magic carpet cosmic soul. Lawrence Arabia plying a lovely late Beatles fed through post punk sound. Lake Ruth , on the baroque end of psych pop, great stuff. And August Wells , currently on tour over here, compelling bruised soul. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 409 Tues July 5 2016...

More music from Whyte Horses from their debut album. Real feel of The Go! Team about it I thought (which is always a good thing) so how about some post Brexit politico-jangle pop from them (from 5 years ago) to go with. Yes. The new Jherek Bischoff album has gorgeous, and often unsettling, orchestrations. Debut solo album from Marielle V Jakobsons of Date Palms contains wonderful 1000 yard drones. A new album by Trashcan Sinatras is another reason to rejoice and give praise. It sounds like they've never been away. And The Fiction Aisle make another beautiful but unsettling brand of orchestral pop music. I'm not sure exactly what it is but I know I like it a lot. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 408 Tues June 28 2016 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm) UCC 9...