The Underground of Happiness

The first instalment of my favourite music of 2018. Categories are a bit arbitrary as always. Parts 2 and 3 to follow. Enjoy. Playlist Django Django – In your beat (Because Music) De Lux – 875 dollars (Innovative Leisure) Tune-Yards – Heart attack (4AD) Kamasi Washington – The Space Traveller’s Lullaby (Young Turks) Todd Tobias & Combo Qasam – Do the Massabu (Tiny Room/Hidden Shoal) Khruangbin – Maria tambien (Dead Oceans) Richard Swift – Broken finger blues (Secretly Canadian) Terry – The whip (Upset The Rhythm) Gulp – Claudia (E.L.K Records) Blue Orchids – Get Bramah (Tiny Global Productions) Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread – When (Full Time Hobby) Jessica Pratt – This time around (Mexican Summer) Steve Gunn – New moon (Matador) Soccer 96 – Harmonious Monk (Slowfoot Records) Orchestra of Spheres – Koudede (Fire) Nightports w/ Matthew Bourne – Exit (Leaf) Camera – Super 8 (Bureau B) Snapped Ankles – Drink and glide (Leaf) Sz...

And so Part 2 of this end of year series. There seems to have been less up tempo electronic music on my radar this year, hence a few crop up in this mostly-guitar set. (There are some ambient and other electronic cuts to come in the final part of the round-up.) Let's not get hung up on that. Enjoy. 1. Future Islands – Seasons (Waiting on you) (4AD) With all due respect to Hozier (who owed a lot in turn to the work of Feel Good Lost, plus maybe ‘Take me to church’ was more of a 2013 thing in any case?) and Kim Kardashian’s buttocks, here was the true thing that broke the internet this year. It showed the power to light up the world of sheer chutzpah – a short, barrel-chested man who can sing his heart out all night and dances like he doesn’t give a fuck who’s watching. On paper those are not the most promising ingredients, perhaps, but Sam Herring turns them into gold, when combined with the thrumming, soaring melodies of Will Cashion and Gerrit Welmers. Funnily enough,...

Another one from a few months back that hasn't made it here yet. Merrill Garbus seems to find currents in the pop ether that nobody else has noticed. So here's the perfectly boisterous and catching first single from the current album Nikki Nack . It's a clapping song, which I suppose some people might take as a negative. It isn't. As well as percussive flesh, there's also more lovely, slinky basslines from Nate Brenner, assorted electronic whipcracks and a series of overlapping, gloriously soulful vocals. The topic is water politics in California. But Tune-Yards have wrapped it in a tune so uplifting and vibrant, you won't be able to stop yourself from signing the petition. A reason to sing x Protest music + Irresistible tune = Top class pop music *Check the equally wonderful 'Hey life', which features more knock-out, elastic poly rhythms. In particular, pay attention to the genius Merrill brings to bear on the vocal layers after the...

Another great cut from the Sabina album to open the show this wk, can't get enough of that (check the review of the album under posts on the right). Just as good is the new single from (Merrill) Tune Yards (Garbus, pic), working eco-politics into a clapping song. Genius. On the Sabina theme, we took a detour into some other European female singers, via Marlene Dietrich and Nico , deadpan shades of both of whom you can hear on Sabina's album. Also the sultrier, sax-smothered side of Polar Bear , the wonderfully atmospheric, stalking electro of UMA , The War on Drugs with fantastic krauty pop grooves. New slanty guitar shapes from Young Knives . And something beautiful and jangly from Theatre Royal , a band from Rochester in Kent. More on these pages as ever. Mar 25 2014 show w/ Sabina,Tune Yards,Nico,Polar Bear,UMA, The War on Drugs,Eyedress,TEEN++ by Theundergroundofhappiness on Mixcloud The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed ...

Another week, another magic live performance from Tune-Yards (as you know, I refuse to do the cAps ShIfT thing), this time covering a Yoko Ono song, We're all water , at the Iceland Airwaves Festival in Reykjavik . As with all great cover versions, Merrill Garbus (and Nate Brenner , let's not forget) manages to make it sound like one of her own songs. Yoko joins them onstage at the end for some freeform vocal workouts, and later asks the crowd "she's great, right?" The answer, Yoko, is yes. (Makes me feel a bit sorry for Nate cos he's extremely cool too.)

No excuse needed around here for a bit of Tune-Yards , the album whokill on 4AD being a shoe-in for album of the year in the UOH cabin. The still current single is Gangsta and a new video for the song has been put together by the very talented Merrill Garbus herself. She comes across as more ninja than gangsta in it, to be honest, showing herself to be extremely flexible (physically as well as artistically). But really, she could have filmed two flies crawling up a wall and put the tune to it and I would have been happy. Legend. Shot on the ubiquitous Eye-Phone...

It's been a few months since we've mentioned Merrill Garbus so it's great to come across some footage of her NBC television debut on the Jimmy Fallon show from last week. Not only do Merrill and Nate Brenner put on a storming performance of Gangsta , the first single from latest album Whokill on 4AD , they've also roped in a horn section and houseband The Roots for help on drumming and rapping. In the words of Tony Bourdain, it's a wonderful thing. *Get a load of that bottle percussion too.

So the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona has been and gone for another year. I didn't make it this year, sadly for me. But I was not missed as about 40,000 other people made up for my absence, and except for some bar hiccups (to do with a new swipe payment system that crashed) it seems like most of them had a pretty great time. (You can find way more detail about this year's festival on Jim Carroll's blog here .) Just to cheer myself up, here's a couple of samplers of the action from two bands that would have been high on my list, and who both made a big impact at the festival by all accounts. Courtesy of genkisparkle Courtesy of MrLiranya She really makes some racket for just one person, doesn't she?

More class action from Merrill Garbus , first explaining the title of the current album, whokill on 4AD , then getting together with partner in crime Nate Brenner to perform a stunning live version of You yes you from the album. Playing Whelan's, Dublin, June 17 Yourstru.ly Presents: tUnE-yArDs "You Yes You" from Yours Truly on Vimeo .

So we've had our summer here in Ireland, in the shape of an Easter heatwave. Normal service has been resumed now in the shape of rain (sometimes wholehearted downpours, sometimes a cheeky drizzle, just for variety). More great music to listen to (indoors) this month, with chamber pop particularly to the fore. But you'll also find orchestral, psychedelic, garage-rock and IDM flourishes, among others, below. What's a pop music tag between friends anyway. All albums, unless otherwise noted. The Doomed Bird of Providence - Will ever pray (Front & Follow) It's quite unusual to find an album that is the result of, in effect, a research project. What a bonus when the music has a mysterious and compelling quality (although we partly guessed as much based on the band's fine eponymous EP of last year). The research in question, by singer Mark Kluzek, focuses on early Australian history and reveals harrowing tales of death and delinquency in the inhospitable tropics an...

Tune-Yards - whokill (4AD) After recording her debut, Bird-Brains , using a dictaphone and freeware, album number two sees Merrill Garbus making full use of a studio, in terms of scope and sound. Unlike that album, there's a lot less ukulele in sight (one exception is Wolly wolly gong with its spooky fairytale quality, a kind of hip-hop lullaby). The other main difference is a more prominent dub influence running throughout - a prime example is Powa with its lovely loping tempo and heavily reverbed vocals. The single Gangsta has a great caustic energy (brass and strident vocals); check out the street funk of My country , with a memorable fuzz synth line, freewheeling brass section and playground chant na-na-na-na-na outro. However, if you have no other contact with this album, you must at least hear the transcendant moment during Doorstep when a bevvy of layered Merrill's (all sha-la-la's and whoa-oo-whoa's) contrive to produce an intimate atmosphere straight off a ...

The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Playlist 172 Tues Apr 19th 2011 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm) Cork Campus Radio, 98.3FM listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/ccr *listen back to this show at https://rapidshare.com/files/458199828/UOH_Podcast_Apr_19_2011.mp3 Playlist Low - Try to sleep ( playing Primavera Sound Festival, Barcelona, May 26-28 ) Left with Pictures - Constantly ( playing Two Thousand Trees Festival, July 16 ) Antonymes - Endlessly Tune-Yards - Doorstep ( playing Whelan's, Dublin, June 17 ) *d'load i'view with Merrill Garbus from Feb 2010 here: http://rapidshare.com/files/354243779/Tune_Yards_UOH_Interview_Podcast.mp3 Toro y Moi - New beat NLF3 - Shadows my friends ( playing Great Escape Festival, Brighton, May 12 ) Hotels Interview Part I Hotels - From the west Hotels Interview Part II Hotels - The b...

More fantastic craziness from Merrill Garbus , with direction by Mimi Cave, choreography by Sonia Reiter and featuring dancing talent from the San Francisco area. Reflects the woman's background in avant-garde theatre.

Another tantalising taster of the new Tune-Yards album, whokill , this a live performance of Doorstep shot "Take Away Shows"-style in the very salubrious Place des Vosges in Paris, with Nate Brenner on drumsticks and stone column. What she does with the vocal loop, and using the ukulele as a mike, is particularly tasty. HibOO d'Live : Tune-Yards "Doorstep" from Le-HibOO.com on Vimeo .

Great to hear some new music from Tune-Yards the other week, a track called bizness , ahead of her new album, whokill , due out in April. You can listen here: http://tune-yards.com/ Here's what I thought of it: Tune Yards - bizness (4AD, from the upcoming album whokill ) Picking up where Merrill Garbus left off with her wonderful debut Bird Brains but with a less ramshackle feel (recorded in a studio as opposed to on a dictaphone). Fantastic, gymnastic vocal loops get things going, before a west African-style groove of staccato bass and a matrix of guitars locks in, with a bank of horns as the cherry on the cake. Wonderful foretaste of her upcoming new album. And a live date in Whelan's in Dublin has been announced for June 17th (she's also part of the mouthwatering bill of the Primavera Sound Festival in Barcelona at the end of May), the first visit to this country in almost 18 months (tickets here - http://www.whelanslive.com/  ). Here's what I thought of...

Spring is here The grass is ris I wonder where the birdies is... Governments are falling like skittles this weather. As usual, pop music has its own soundtrack to world events. Try turning down the volume of your favourite news channel and turning up some of this UOH playlist instead. It might just turn your world upside-down. *All albums below, unless otherwise stated. John Stammers - John Stammers (Wonderful Sound) Gorgeous folk-blues hybrid from the Manchester native, built around fingerpicked acoustic guitar and a smoky, unassuming voice. For fans of Nick Drake or (especially) Bert Jansch. As usual, the beauty is in the detail - the keening cello of Idle I'm , muted trumpet set against mournful pedal steel on Here again , the one-note violin chorus of The fridge . Plaintiff and heartfelt, a beautiful addition to the canon of modern English folk music. A Lazarus Soul - Through a window in the sunshine room (Intent to Supply Records) Authentically downbeat album of el...

That time of year for lists again. A vaguely arbitrary exercise, although strangely satisfying. Especially when it's been another great year for pop music . Below is what has been soundtracking the UOH cabin for the past year. Read. Discard. Listen. Enjoy. I've also put together a Best of 2010 Podcast which I'll send details of in another post. Til 2011, stay warm. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed Favourite Albums of 2010 (71, in no particular order) Syd Matters - Brotherocean (Because Music) Sone Institute – Curious memories (Front & Follow) Dum Dum Girls - I will be (Sub Pop) NLF3 - Beautiful is the way to the world beyond (Prohibited Records) Joanna Newsom - Have one on me (Drag City) She & Him - Volume Two (Double 6) Christy & Emily - No rest (Klangbad) Field Music - Field Music (Measure) (Memphis Industries) *d'load interview (phone) with David & Peter from Field Music here The Ruby Suns - Fight softl...