The Underground of Happiness

New music from A Winged Victory For The Sullen this week (pictured), a characteristically serene and gorgeous slow-build with strings, boding well for their new album. Something beautiful too from Golden Retriever , a Portland duo who make a kind of minimalist electronica with modular synths. Brilliant. Also new material from Polar Bear , bringing free jazz and some other stuff into pop music. And Brace/Choir making very tasty drone pop. Also room for old faves Band of Clouds, Rebecca Collins and The Altered Hours , all playing live in Ireland soon. And new faves The New Mendicants, Jacques Caramac and Kiran Leonard keeping the world safe for jangle, glam and prog, respectively. More on these pages as ever. Feb 18 2014 show w/AWVFTS,Band of Clouds,Golden Retriever,Polar Bear,Brace/Choir,Altered Hours++ by Theundergroundofhappiness on Mixcloud The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www....

I’m a bit behind the curve on this one (the curve being June 2011 - I know my colleague Jim Comic was well ahead of the curve on this), but this is an album too good to pass up from the Manchester four-piece. It’s freewheeling and forward-thinking folk rock with a strong pop conviction at the core (actually it makes me think of the kind of band Elbow could be if they weren’t so, dare I say, dour.). New single They may talk starts life as a glittering electric piano-sunburst guitar duet, but by the chorus has somehow morphed into a great falsetto-festooned jam, with some great hi-hats. Missing out is a classic English smalltown tearjerker, with hints of brass band under the chorus riff. A title like Can’t afford to rely on paté might turn you off but stick around for the plaintiff vocal and teardrop piano, it’s affecting. The superb Gravel dents throws the verse-chorus structure out the window but still manages to cram in a sackful of hooks (I particularly like the space-funk interlud...