The Underground of Happiness

You might remember an artist called Emphemetry , consisting of Richard Birkin from Derby . He was responsible for a beautiful album in 2011 called A lullaby hum for tired streets , a kind of love poem to his home city - it featured in our Best of 2011 round-up . More detail on the album here . He's announced new music now, one part of which is a soundtrack to a short film called Twinklebox , about the inner life/workings of a music box, made by Aaron Bradbury . There are two tracks involved in the digital release, the title track, a charming music box melody with piano support. The second, Old dreams , foregrounds the piano, with a lovely, close-miked, intimate atmosphere (in a style you might have come to associate with Nils Frahm ), which adds an air of mystery to the busy melody. Listen here. Twinklebox | Old Dreams by Emphemetry And the film is available here, part one in a series of Music Box Chronicles . Twinklebox from Aaron Bradbury on Vimeo . There's...

Another beauty from last month's list. Emphemetry - A lullaby hum for tired streets (Time Travel Opps) A beautiful album alternating between ambient instrumentals and heartfelt folk songs with avant-garde leanings, from Derby's Richard Birkin . He describes the album himself as a "time travel fancy" and it comes across a bit like a love poem to his home city. After Catalunya is a sleepy wash of rumbles and drones punctuated with guitar harmonics. The sound of traffic in the rain opens Every other second day , a drunken keyboard waltz with distorted vocal takes over, before a low-key trumpet duet to finish. Five fields has a gorgeous fingerpicked guitar pattern with string accompaniment. Emilelodie is an elegant and arresting piano instrumental eventually submerged under an intriguing wave of static (the piece fits easily into the post-classical camp and in fact Nils Frahm crops up here on production and mixing duties). The overall effect is to put a sense of wo...