The Underground of Happiness

*Dedicated to LK who loves autumn* Autumn. Fall. I’ve been threatening to do one of these for a while. What are autumn songs? What is autumn music? There are the ones that reference autumn explicitly. Leaves. Wind. Rain. Colours. Sun lower in the sky. Those unforgettable moons. But beyond that there’s the metaphor of time passing. A certain mood. The beginning of the end of something. That can still be beautiful. Lots of music taps into this well for its atmosphere. A certain meditative quality might be in it. A contemplation of something. Maybe nostalgia. Often a minor key. Or at least bittersweet. (Possibly related – many of the tracks here feature woodwind. Flutes. Clarinets. Double recorder. The force of breath? There’s even the sighing of an accordion. And a harmonica.) There might even be spirits involved. Souls. Halloween. Contact with another world. Or like birds taking off for warmer climates some kind of migration. Transformation. Death or decay...

I used to have a Yo La Tengo fantasy. It involved pulling up in traffic next to a boyracer, one of those with the choons pumping so loud that his souped-up Toyota Starlet is visibly shaking on the street. I roll my window down, nod across at my friend, low-slung in his front seat, and slowly turn up my own car stereo. Playing is ‘Moby Octopad’, the second song on Yo La Tengo’s classic album I can hear the heart beating as one , a pounding, circular bassline which gathers bleeds of guitar feedback and hushed massed vocals to make a curious mixture of insistent but polite. It safely drowns out the boyracer’s disorganised clatter. He looks over at me, agog, no doubt taken aback that something so soft can be so loud. I drive off, satisfied. Yo La Tengo are so much the prototype of the cultish indie band that they were the subject of a hilarious High Fidelity-ish parody by The Onion some years ago (http://store.theonion.com/p-4758-37-record-store-clerks-feared-dead-magnet.aspx). I c...

Less music on the show this week, purely because several tracks were longer. For example, 11 minutes odd for two great rambling pieces of kosmische from Yo La Tengo , one from the new album Fade , sung by James McNew, and one from 2000's And then nothing turned itself inside out sung by Ira and Georgia. Brilliant and great to hear them in what sounds to me like top form. Also, two Choice Prize nominees in the shape of 2012 show favourites Mumblin' Deaf Ro and windings ; beautiful cinematic classical music from Michael Price (new on Erased Tapes, pictured below) and Matthew Bourne (2012); a devilishly catchy Wussy remix; Goat and Os Mutantes rubbing up against each other; and more Lord Huron , sounding a bit like Paul Simon 's Graceland transplanted to the US west coast - in other words, very nice indeed. As always, more info on these pages. In particular, check the recent Best of 2012 posts for full details on those selections. Jan 15 2013 show w/ Mumblin' Deaf ...