The Underground of Happiness

A review of the year so far in music. Some great sounds in 2018. Enjoy. Playlist 489 - Best of 2018, Jan-July Kacy & Clayton – The siren’s song (New West Records) Kacey Johansing – The hiding (Night Bloom Records/Melodic) Jessica Risker – Anyway when I look in your eyes (Western Vinyl) Jim Ghedi – Sloade Lane (Basin Rock Records) Szun Waves – Constellation (The Leaf Label) Spindle Ensemble – Moonbow (Adderwell Music) Nightports w/ Matthew Bourne – Exit (The Leaf Label) Get Well Soon – Martyrs (City Slang) Caroline Says – First song (Western Vinyl) The Saxophones – Aloha (Full Time Hobby) Jack Hayter – At Crossness Pumping Station (Gare du Nord) Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread - Less than positive (Full Time Hobby) Jennifer Castle – Texas (Paradise of Bachelors) Kamasi Washington – The Space Traveller’s Lullaby (Young Turks) Django Django – In your beat (Because Music) De Lux – 875 dollars (Innovative Leisure) BOYTOY – Mary Anne (Stolen Body ...

The final weekly show for the time being has a number of my favourite things in 2018 so far. Caroline Says , a dream pop of devastating hush. Jim Ghedi , beautiful chamber folk and each element holding its own. La Luz , stalking noir pop with an unbeatable bassline. Kacy & Clayton , great country rock with an unforgettable lead vocal. Jack Hayter's wonderful heart on sleeve narratives. And new Jessica Risker , folk music with gorgeous/unsettling psych tones. Keep in touch on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 486 Tues Apr 17 2018 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 goo.gl/C2Skvv Playlist The Byrds – She don’t care about time Kacy & Clayton – A lifeboat ( playing Cathedral Arts Quarter Festival, Belfast, May 7 ) J...

New Jess Williamson (pictured) on the show this week. A bit of a departure based on her previous stuff I've heard. She apparently moved from Texas to California. Sounds like a good move. Blue sky psych pop shall we say. Caroline Says (Caroline Sallee) moved to Austin Texas from Alabama and recorded her second album late at night in her apartment with gorgeous hushed vocals. Landless are a 4-piece a capella Irish group. Here's a spellbinding lament from their debut album. Jim Ghedi - great folk instrumentals undercut with classical strings and a lovely trumpet part. And The Double Six of Paris . Giving Ray Charles an upbeat jazz treatment. 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 484 Tues Apr 3 2018 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm) UCC 98.3FM listen live on...

The second album from Caroline Sallee – from Alabama by way of Austin – following quickly on from last year’s wonderful 50,000,000 Elvis fans can’t be wrong . It picks up on that album’s most interesting (to me) thread. Banks of backing vocals. Cooing and swooping in unexpected ways. As on her debut album much more than a background affair. In many ways more expressive than the lead vocal which has a deadpan quality. It’s very lovely for that. Maybe hushed would be a better word. In fact the press release informs that the album was recorded in Sallee’s apartment with the vocals often done late at night. Sometimes a necessity can become a virtue. Elsewhere there are baroque touches reminiscient of Grizzly Bear. For example the jarring but melodic intervention at the opening of the 2nd verse of ‘First song’. Also the sublime use of a soul sample on ‘Sweet Home Alabama’. The excellent itchy hi hat work on ‘Rip off’. The sheer deadpan stoicism of the whole thing....

******************************************************************************************************** Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble – Undying love for humanity (from the album Find me finding you , Drag City) Wonderful Brazilian twist on Laetitia’s signature kosmische. It’s hard to pick out any one element but I must say the vocals are a particular joy. Not just the lead which is as clear and pure as the best Stereolab . But the inspired backing ba da das which drive the playout. Still sounds fresh as a daisy almost a year after release. Michael Nau – I root (Full Time Hobby) Sublime hazy memories of love from Maryland in the US... ... as if Harry Nilsson turned his mind to happier fuzzier times. There’s very little detail to list here – a one and a half note guitar figure, a snare roll, a ride cymbal, a dream of a voice – but really the story is more to do with the atmosphere. Languid is a word. Sleepy maybe. Intimate for sure. ...

The Go! Team on the show again this week - better get used to that, it's one of the best pieces of music heard anywhere in some time. Moondog and Bob Lind to begin. An odd pairing you might say. But I wonder if Jack Nietzsche (whose genius you can hear in the production of 'Counting') was aware of the Viking of 6th Avenue? Something in that glorious swirling arrangement sounds to me like it's speaking to the marvellous rounds and overlapping rhythms and time signatures of Moondog. Drahla have a nice line in Sonic Youth esque tight jagged post punk. Lean Year and The Saxophones , two of a great current crop of American artists plying the edges of dream pop to intriguig effect. And speaking of that, one of the classics from Julee Cruise with the handiwork of Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch not far away. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.face...

A musical collaboration between a film maker and a former academic. That’s the kind of set up liable to put some people off. But this project involving Rick Alverson and Emilie Rex has many great things. Textures to hang your hat on. Haunting melodies. Intriguing atmospheres. A sense of yearning and adventure. (Are they the same thing?) A certain kind of classic 60s folk music is clearly an influence although fed through a surrealist filter. The citing of Alejandro Jodorowsky’s film Holy Mountain in the song of the same name is a clue to where they’re coming from. In 'Come and see' a finger strummed guitar is the main company for the beautiful double tracks of Rex's vocal. One strained high. One soft close up. String swells make a compelling chamber atmosphere in 'Watch me'. In my favourite 'Her body in the sky' Rex's voice sounds like it will break at any second as a clarinet noodles around a to die for organ hoo...

I love a good backing vocal. Especially the kind that elevates something already good into something special. That’s what happens here on the opening song of the album by Caroline Sallee who goes under Caroline Says . A simple but handsome acoustic fingerpick takes on an atmosphere of intrigue with the addition of an intrusive backing hum. I say intrusive to mean you can’t but be aware of it and it’s recorded right up to the mike becoming a wash that is higher in the mix than you would be used to for background humming. It also enters along with the main vocal which is immediately...not disorientating as such but certainly wrongfooting. Later the hums turn into sighs and swoop and swoon in a way that only reminds me of My Bloody Valentine. This is a clue for the rest of the album in fact as folk rubs shoulders with off kilter jangling pop elements (in which some of the melodies carry a certain MBV-ish menace). You might not say shoegaze bit it is a dream of what p...

Part 3 of this epic poem, again in no particular order. And as a companion piece, check also this Best of 2016 mix which includes many of these tunes, along with a few from the upcoming Psych section, the final instalment. ************************************************************ 1. Tortoise – The Catastrophist (Thrill Jockey) Another wonderful album from Chicago’s finest and apart from anything else (the glorious hooks, the minimalist chops, the thrilling musicianship etc) a reminder of just how fucking groovy they are. Marvellous music for the brain and the feet. 2. Syrinx – Tumblers from the vault: 1970-1972 (RVNG Intl) A bolt from the blue for me and a fantastic compilation of ecstatic kosmische/dream jazz from this Toronto 3-piece. Also a thoroughly fascinating slice of the 70s underground (albeit unexpectedly accessible) and another great piece of archive work by RVNG Intl. 3. Fixity – Hungry clouds (Kantcope) Tremendous cut from the very...

For the first show of 2017 a mixture of some 2016 faves and some new music. The former. Weyes Blood , majestic break up music. Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith , beguiling organic synth tunes. Tortoise , a twisting groovebeast. Lambchop , a subtly shifting pitter patter autotuned animal. The latter. Courtney Marie Andrews , sumptuous country regret. Flo Morrissey & Matthew E. White , a lovely soulful flight of fancy. Noveller , new year, same old epic soundscapes. And a wonderful treasure from 1970, Lee Hazlewood with Suzi Jane Hokom in Sweden. 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 428 Tues Jan 3 2017 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 goo.gl/NhPIl9 Playlist Courtney Marie Andrews –...

Sublime evocation of the wide open spaces of America courtesy of Matt Schneider of Chicago with some friends from that city’s notable musical underground... ...as distinct from Nashville which might seem at first listen like a better home musically. A quixotic rising voice singing to itself and keeping its own tune, a creaky chair, a simple strum, a shimmering steel guitar. It’s all very low maintenance but still demands your full attention. A rough diamond. Maybe not so Nashville after all. It is totally captivating. These Stars by Moon Bros.

Check out Moon Bros (pic), Matt Schneider from Chicago with some help from that city's finest under(over)ground musical talent, sublime stately country music. Stay for William Tyler right after, clear eyed ruminations on the state of America today, in the form of gorgeous chiming guitar picked tunes. The nasty groovy Kid Congo & The Pink Monkey Birds are in Ireland this week playing shows, inc Pine Lodge by the sea in Cork June 26. Morgan Delt is a new name on me but what a beautiful fuzzy psych pop noise he makes, from west coast US. And finally summer music (if we play enough of it summer might actually come), two songs written by Andy Partridge , for XTC & The Monkees . 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 407 Tues June 21 2016 11.00am-12.00pm (repeated on Tuesday...

A most endearing album of electronic compositions created on something called a Buchla Music Easel by the Bay Area resident. That’s a kind of synth, basically (I’d never heard of it before), but with a seemingly much wider range of filters, patches and effects. Here’s a demonstration by Smith of the instrument at work – you’ll notice that there’s just as much of a visual appeal to it, perhaps living up to its “Easel” moniker. Smith’s Twitter profile has her as a “Modular Synth Sound Sculptress and Orchestral Composer” and the scope and ambition implied by that description doesn’t seem far-fetched when you hear the remarkable sounds she creates. The description might prepare you, though, for something slightly dry or academic although nothing could be further from the truth. There is no warning in it of the kind of playful skitter and bounce you meet on the album, particularly over the first 6 songs. ‘Sundry’ or ‘Glide’ for example, with their frantic energy and impossible to...

Folklorist-by-day Joseph O’Connell weaves an album around realist tales of local southern Indiana wildlife. It might sound unlikely on paper but the results are compelling. Particularly on this gem. Stately picked Spanish guitar sets the tone, as the lyrics brilliantly evoke a living breathing tumult of colour - “sequined shoes, golden robes, all of them embroidered with roses”. Long time admirer Will Oldham joins on backing vocals later to produce a quiet crescendo of emotion. Timeless and very moving. Where in Our Woods by Elephant Micah

Wires Under Tension - Irreversible machines (Western Vinyl, from the album Light science ) A confounding brand of math-rock from the South Bronx duo, with violin, electronics and a stirring brass undercurrent. Pounding toms bring a great rousing quality. And it's catchy as hell.

EDM - Night people (Western Vinyl) You'll have heard of Bloomington, Indiana's progressive rockers Early Day Miners (their 2009 album The treatment was a particular favourite round these parts), now shortened to this acronym. Very reminiscient in places of ex-Cardinal Richard Davies' psych-folk/pop solo style (that's only a good thing), but with extra prog stylings. So you have the dense, galactic instrumental Milking the moon (a bit like a slowed-down Wooden Shjips), also the stirring folk-rock-with-recorder of Turncoats , the itchy psych-guitar of Hold me down , the insistent, circling melodies of Stereo/Video . The initials are no drawback. A fine, fine album. Stereo/Video free d'load : http://westernvinyl.com/audio/WV90.SV.mp3