The Underground of Happiness

Something of a psych run to kick off this wk starting with the great glitch-ridden new song from the upcoming 3rd Tame Impala album. From the upcoming 2nd album by The Great Balloon Race is the equally sublime 'Why meddle?'. New music also from Twerps , a highly likeable ramshackle waltz, Kramies with a lovely line in somnolent dream pop, Noveller with another epic guitar instrumental. 40th anniversary of Kraftwerk's Radioactivity, new album from Smile Down Upon Us which is wonderful charming left field pop, The Monochrome Set with another brand of alt pop full of character. And O Emperor , making soft pop safe for the masses. Mar 24 2015 w/ Tame Impala,Sam Prekop,Noveller,Kraftwerk,Twerps,O Emperor,Natalie Prass++ by The Underground Of Happiness on Mixcloud The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 34...

First hearing from this Cork band’s upcoming second album ( remember their first album, it was great ). There’s plenty to recognise from that album here, particularly the shimmering Tortoise-like guitars and delicious skittering drums. But the intervening couple of years have seen the addition of a fascinating new element to the sound, motorik rhythms in the form of a fantastic propulsive bassline on this track. It turns what was a highly pleasurable, dreamy, kinda hazy creature into a highly pleasurable, dreamy, kinda hazy and absolutely thrilling creature. The motorik subsides at times over the 6 minutes, falling back into the gorgeous jazz stew, before crawling out of the swamp again and making a break for the horizon. Based on this brilliant introduction, I’m looking forward even more to hearing the rest of the album. Previews are expected when they play with Princess in Cork at the end of this month, which is unmissable as they say. https://www.facebook.com/events/4534...

A few new releases from Fire Records this week, all great. Death & Vanilla are a Swedish duo with many strings to their bow, one of which is gorgeous haunted psych pop songs, bathed in reverb. Noveller makes epic instrumentals with one guitar. And Surf City are a sunny upbeat psych outfit from Auckland. Get into it. I'm also in love with Marker Starling this week, giving out about husbands on tour misbehaving, AM rock faintly reminiscient of Steely Dan but with beautiful reed and wind backing. There's Natalie Prass given full baroque orchestral treatment. New music from The Great Balloon Race , great shifting prog pop, their 2nd album is due out soon. Myles Manley , someone pay him what he's worth ffs (but ironically if he was paid what he's worth, he might not produce killer tunes like this). Cat Palace , what a wonderful singing voice that man has. And The Drink musing on narcolepsy - "a petit maaaaaaaaaaaaaal". More on the blog. Fe...

Last show of the year, featuring a few more Christmas pieces and a few more of my Best of 2012 choices. I was all set for a great segue, from ‘Cheer up Charlie’ (from the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory , which is of course de facto Christmas music), on into Mumblin Deaf Ro’s brilliant almost-riposte ‘Cheer up Charlie Brown’, but I almost fucked it up. I forgot to bring the former with me and just about managed to pull it off via a crackly youtube link. We also had the incomparable Dylan Thomas reading his own ‘A child’s Christmas in Wales’, a peerless piece of writing and delivery, followed by John Cale’s song of the same name to finish the show. The Spook of the Thirteenth Lock, Jherek Bischoff, AU, Hidden Highways and Sone Institute all helped to make 2012 great musically, for me. There’s also new music from (The) Caseworker, Cat Power and Seb Rochford & friends, in the latest of the Days & Nights at the Takeaway series. And one of my favourite Cork...