The Underground of Happiness

Playlist 211 - Mar 6 2012

2012-03-07T14:05:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 211
Tues Mar 6 2012
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
https://rapidshare.com/files/2606149256/The_Underground_Of_Happiness__Mar_6_2012.m4a

Playlist
AU - Get alive (playing Shacklewell Arms, London, Apr 25)
Peter Broderick - I am piano
Memoryhouse - This will be our year (playing Whelan's, Dublin, Mar 24)
The Zombies - She's not there
Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot - Bonnie & Clyde
Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin - 69 Année Erotique (Serge Gainsbourg: Mort 21, Gulpd, Triskel Arts Centre, Cork, Mar 11)
Django Django - Firewater
Frankie Rose - Had we had it
Field Music - From hide and seek to heartache (playing Forbidden Fruit Festival, Dublin, June 4)
Soap&Skin - Wonder
Cormac O Caoimh - 100,000
Polica - Lay your cards out
Mint Julep - To the sea
Liz Green - Bad medicine
AU - The veil

*next week's show will feature music from FS Blumm & Lucrecia Dalt, AU, Dustin O'Halloran & Papa M, among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Peter Broderick, new album

2012-03-02T03:53:00.001-08:00

Peter Broderick has a track record of speaking directly to his fans, literally - in the past he has recorded his answers to fan questions and uploaded the audio to his website, a particularly lovely personal touch. You get a gist of this kind of personal attention too in this interview I did with him when he played at the Crane Lane Theatre in Cork in 2009.

http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/06/peter-broderick-interview.html

His new "vocal" album is just out on Bella Union (as opposed to his many soundtrack and instrumental/collaborative projects). It's called http://www.itstartshear.com. That's right, it's a web address. Why? Rather than me explaining, let me hand you over to the man himself.

How do you feel about music downloading?

It is a common question addressed to musicians and one that I have been asked several times in interviews. My response has always been that it doesn't bother me. It is unavoidable. And in the best case someone who downloads an album and likes it might consider buying it at some point, or they might come to a concert and buy it directly from me at the merchandise table.

What does bother me about downloading is how most of the time the listener doesn't have access to the artwork and/or text that comes along with a physical copy. Perhaps for many people this doesn't even matter, but personally I have always felt a great satisfaction from having an image and some words by the artist to accompany and enhance the sounds. To take in the full picture as the artist intended, which in my mind includes all the liner notes and artwork as well as the music .

So, http://www.itstartshear.com was designed simply to be a place where all listeners, no matter what format they obtain the music in, can easily access all the lyrics and notes and visuals which are meant go along with the songs. And as a title, http://www.itstartshear.com serves the music well by automatically becoming a link any time the album is written about. A link to the place where people can learn all about the album, directly from the source. A link that is the album.

Or at least a link that will be the album, once it comes out, February 20, 2012. For those who read this and hear the music before that date, I am happy to tell you that http://www.itstartshear.com is the result of nearly three years of studio work, and is my first album created without any self-made restrictions. Whereas on albums past I set out to work strictly with certain sets of instruments, this one includes anything and everything I could get my hands on and which seemed appropriate for the song.

Produced by Nils Frahm at his Durton Studio in Berlin, it is my first project on which the sonic timbre of the songs was treated equally as important as the music itself. I have been in awe of the sound on the many records coming out of Nils' studio over the last couple years, so I thank him deeply for helping me to explore a richer, wider sonic landscape.

Furthermore, many of the songs on this album were made in dedication to someone or something in particular. There is a recollection of a romantic letter exchange from several years ago (A Tribute To Our Letter Writing Days), a song written by my father when he was 19, which I discovered on an old cassette tape in late 2008 (Blue), a remembrance of a friend who passed away in a kayaking accident, for which I enlisted anyone and everyone to submit recordings by sharing a commemorative text over the internet (Asleep), a celebration of a little-known artist who has inspired me greatly (Colin), and a dedication to a bird whose life I stole while driving alone in the countryside (Trespassing), among others.

Thank you for taking the time to read and listen.

Sincerely,
Peter Ray Broderick - November 18, 2011

What a legend. Instead of wringing his hands about the injustice of illegal downloading, PB concentrates on what, in my opinion, should be the key concern for every musician - to have their music heard. How to add value to that for the audience is the logical next question, which he addresses above. And if you've seen the man play live, you'll know the kind of value he provides as a live performer.

Rock on Peter.

*The album is sounding great on first listen, I'll have a review of it later in the month. In the meantime, type the album title into your address bar and have a listen for yourself. And in the process, take part in the future of the business we call music.

http://www.itstartshear.com/

http_splash from Feld on Vimeo.

Field Music – Plumb (Memphis Industries)

2012-02-29T09:19:00.000-08:00

Another triumph from the Brewis Brothers, this time taking the thrilling prog-pop template from (Measure) and moving it in a semi-cinematic direction, like some kind of chirpy/disaffected Northern England mini-musical (in fact lads, how about getting this album on tour as a stage play with actors, a set and the band providing accompanying continuity?). So, momentary orchestral flourishes advance the plot, segues and interludes change the mood in film-cue style, field recordings of church bells and water gurgling locate the action. What’s the plot? My best guess is that it centres around the banality of everyday life, domestic strife and attempts to transcend same. The stand-out “conventional” tunes, A new town and (I keep thinking about) A new thing act as the theme tunes of the piece, conveying the core message with great brio (Is this the picture? comes a close third in its XTC spikiness, just ahead of the swooning, string-laden From hide and seek to heartache).

Grim up North? Maybe, but it’s a kind of delicious grimness, decorated with fantastic tunes (albeit mostly miniatures), and fascinating musical ideas pouring out of every orifice.

F.S. Blumm & Lucrecia Dalt – Cuatro covers (La Bel Netlabel)

2012-02-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

Drifting loveliness with an edge from the German Blumm and Spanish-based Colombian Dalt. Among the many joys here (Carpenters and Stooges covers side by side is one), I think my favourite is the transposition of Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps, which turns into an underworld duet awash with guitar hum and obscure pitter-patterings, where Dalt’s breathy invocations find their perfect foil in Blumm’s baritone reassurances. Sublime (as is everything on this wonderful pan-European label).

Free d’load www.lanetlabel.com

Playlist 210 - Feb 28 2012

2012-02-29T09:06:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 210
Tues Feb 28 2012
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
https://rapidshare.com/files/896751319/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_Feb_28_2012.m4a

Playlist
Milagres - For disposal (playing Primavera Festival, Barcelona, May 30)
Julianna Barwick - Never change
Hooded Fang - ESP
Grand Pocket Orchestra - Five pairs of fingers (playing Whelan's, Dublin, Mar 9, w/ Tieranniesaur & Last Days of 1984)
Seb Rochford & Leo Abrahams - Faint eligible remains (Days & Nights at the Takeaway 2)
Dirty Three - Rising below (playing I'll Be Your Mirror Festival, London, Mar 25-27)
Fireworks Night - Amongst the disappeared (playing Hoxton Hall, London, Mar 8)
Walpurgis Family - Simon smiles
Songs of Green Pheasant - Mirror
Lambchop - Gone tomorrow (playing Vicar Street, Dublin, Mar 3)
The Agency - Secrets to be told
Errors - Tusk

*next week's show will feature music from Memoryhouse, The Zombies, Serge Gainsbourg, Peter Broderick and Django Django, among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Milagres – Glowing mouth (Memphis Industries)

2012-02-29T04:29:00.000-08:00

A debut album of intriguing chamber/art pop, which is a curious but compelling mixture of sombre and upbeat, built around the star-material voice of Kyle Wilson. It’s a voice that bears an uncanny similarity in places to the beautiful tremolo of the fondly-remembered Murray Lightbourne of The Dears; at other times, it reaches for a sensuous, late night falsetto. Whichever, it’s engaging as anything and the catchiest hook on the album (though there are many).

Throughout, the album’s spine of pulsing electric piano lines, shimmering cymbals and self-analytical lyrics might make you think of Grizzly Bear. Particularly, perhaps, during the uplifting crescendo of Gentle beast, or the deep, swirling undertow of the title track. But there’s plenty of variety in tone. The opening song, and first single, Halfway, maintains a lovely spacious quality, among the fizzing keyboards and woodblock percussion. Check also the tremendous slow build of For disposal, the sweetly disorientating guitar melody of Doubted and the fervent, impassioned plea of Gone.

Arrangements are always in the service of the songs (the addition of strings, as well as trumpet, flute and clarinet is very sparing) - delicate but also capable of delivering thrilling moments. In the process, an atmosphere of intrigue hangs in the air throughout. An album with several knockout tunes, it still manages the great trick of revealing its many layers gradually. And with every listen, it’s burrowing deeper under my skin. It’s hard to say what any of us will be listening to next year, but this feels like an album that will stick around. Showing a remarkable poise and maturity for a debut, this is glorious pop music.

*Director Dimitri Simakis picks up on a wonderfully surreal strain, not immediately apparent in the music, in this video for Halfway.

Songs of Green Pheasant – Soft wounds (Rusted Rail)

2012-02-27T03:56:00.002-08:00

Beautiful and intriguing album on the Galway-based label from Sheffield’s Duncan Sumpner (following a few long players on Fat Cat in the past). There’s a flavour of Midlake about these woozy, tripped-out folk songs that’s very appealing. For example, the languid Teen wolf or the nostalgic Deaf Sarah. There’s also trumpet involved, which (with the exception of Johnny Carroll) we always love.

Songs of Green Pheasant / Teenwolf from danny bird on Vimeo.

Chairlift – I belong in your arms (Young Turks, from the album Something)

2012-02-27T03:54:00.000-08:00

Caroline Polachek’s soaring vocal does a fantastic impression of sweet surrender on this glorious electro-pop number, the standout track from their second album. Twinkling and with a rush of euphoria about it, it’s the perfect marriage of content and form.

Matthew Bourne in China

2012-02-27T03:28:00.000-08:00

Matthew Bourne's Montauk Variations is one of my favourite albums of the year so far - you can read more of what I think about it on this link.

http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2012/01/matthew-bourne-montauk-variations-leaf.html

News today that Matthew has begun a residency in China. He's started a blog about his stay there - it's entertaining and self-deprecating (a bit like his music really) and it'll be interesting to follow him over the course of the six weeks. Here's episode 1, which features photos of some huge meals.

http://matthewbourne.com/blog/?p=94

As we're in Oscar week, and given that a silent film has just swept the boards, let's remind ourselves of Matthew Bourne's sublime version of the Charlie Chaplin tune Smile.

Julianna Barwick, 1st album on vinyl

2012-02-25T10:07:00.000-08:00

You'll remember seeing the name Julianna Barwick around here before. She was responsible for one of the most beautiful, and haunting, albums of last year, The magic place on Asthmatic Kitty, her debut for that label. Her first album, Sanguine, is getting a first issue on vinyl now, on the Portland-based M'Lady's label. If you were into The magic place, you'll love it. If not, you need to hear it, so here you go.

Playlist 209 - Feb 21 2012

2012-02-22T15:32:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 209
Tues Feb 21 2012
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
https://rapidshare.com/files/2588781496/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_Feb_21_2012.m4a

Playlist
Field Music - A new town (playing The Fleece, Bristol, Feb 23)
*d'load interview with the Brewis Brothers here -
http://soundcloud.com/underground-of-happiness/field-music-interview

Django Django - Default (playing Grand Social, Dublin, Feb 23)
(The) Caseworker - Sea years
*d'load interview with Conor from (The) Caseworker here -
http://conorot.podomatic.com/entry/2011-10-17T08_17_50-07_00

Tindersticks - Frozen (playing Trianon, Paris, Mar 3)
Phantom Limb - Gravy train (playing Whelan's Upstairs, Dublin, Mar 8)
Alabama Shakes - Hold on
Chairlift - Cool as a fire (playing Borderline, London, Mar 6)
Jagwar Ma - Come save me
Frankie Rose - Pair of wings
Saint Yorda - Deep water
Cormac O Caoimh - A new season for love
Grand Pocket Orchestra - Sandra (playing Bourke's Bar, Limerick, Feb 23 & Whelan's Upstairs, Dublin, Feb 24)
Tanlines - Brothers (playing Night & Day, Manchester, Mar 23)
La Sera - Never come around
Perfume Genius - Hood (playing St Pancras Old Church, London, May 14)

*next week's show will feature music from Walpurgis Family, Grand Pocket Orchestra, Milagres, Hooded Fang & Songs of Green Pheasant, among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Lower Dens video

2012-02-22T13:19:00.000-08:00

The lead track, Brains, from the new Lower Dens album, Nootropics (which I'm sure you know by now is pronounced No-eh-tropics), has been everpresent on the UOH playlist since the end of January. It's an unassuming krautrock monster of a tune. And the video is available now. More of a filmic interpretation really, directed by the award-winning Tristan Patterson, where each minute twitch in the musical arrangement has a visual shadow. So the entry of the hi-hat on 45s prompts a rhythmic shiver around the inscrutable Jana Hunter's face. It's ingenious really. I recommend you click here this minute.

Tour dates are to be announced around album release time (end of April), including in Ireland apparently, so stay tuned.

AU live video

2012-02-22T04:39:00.000-08:00

We mentioned a couple of months back that Portland duo AU had signed to the Leaf label, with their new album Both lights due out in April. The irresistible Solid gold was the first song from it to see the light of day - it's been on the UOH playlist ever since.

Solid Gold 7" by AU

Now they've released film of a rollicking live version of the song, shot by Oregon collective Into the Woods, featuring, along with Luke and Dana, a brass section, electric guitar and the considerable vocal talents of Holland Andrews, who also sings on the album. It's liable to put you in a good mood and keep you there.

Feels Like Home Ep 44 - AU "Solid Gold" from Into The Woods on Vimeo.

Tindersticks new album

2012-02-20T03:50:00.000-08:00

In a reluctant (if you know what I mean) addition to the category of favourite bands you've lost touch with (speaking for myself), there's a new album from Tindersticks on the way, The something rain, on City Slang. They're giving away Frozen for free on this link - it's got the trademark rolling bassline, whipcrack guitars, and some great wailing saxophone and trumpet. As usual with this band, it's a fantastic mood piece.

http://www.tindersticks.co.uk/the-something-rain/

There's also a beautiful, nostalgic film made at their recording studio, backed by the mournful, cello-laden Medicine.

tindersticks - Medicine (official video) from tindersticks on Vimeo.

I haven't always been thinking about them but I'm glad they're back.

Olafur Arnalds, new video

2012-02-20T03:31:00.000-08:00

Beautiful new animation to Olafur Arnalds' Near light, from last year's Living Room Songs EP on Erased Tapes. The film was made by Lam Ho Tak and it comes across like a monochromatic, Twilight Zone version of Studio Ghibli.

And of course the music is a perfect balance of restraint and emotion. Arnalds is just about to embark on an extensive European tour, check the dates here.

Playlist 208 - Feb 14 2012

2012-02-15T14:56:00.000-08:00

Erased Tapes is 5

2012-02-08T05:00:00.000-08:00

One of our favourite labels around here is Erased Tapes, home to some of the most beautiful records of the last few years - Peter Broderick's soundtrack work, Nils Frahm's solo piano (and collaborative) albums, Olafur Arnalds' chamber music and, most recently, A Winged Victory for the Sullen's swoonsome, ambient instrumentals, to name just a few (the latter's gig in Cork a few weeks ago was also up there for me among my all-time highlights of gigs in this, or any, city). Well, they're celebrating their 5th birthday and to mark the occasion they're giving away a free sampler featuring everyone on the roster. You can sample the sampler below, to avail of the download just register on their website.

There was apparently a surprise party for label founder Robert Raths in Berlin, some of which was recorded - have a look at Peter Broderick, Nils Frahm and friend Martyn playing here.

"Erased Tapes: Five Years Old!" from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.

The label is also hosting its own night at The Great Escape Festival in Brighton, somewhere between May 10th & 12th. And there's also a box set planned for this year of previously unreleased material from artists on the roster. It all sounds brilliant and I can't wait. What a label.

Playlist 207 - Feb 7 2012

2012-02-08T03:22:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 207
Tues Feb 7 2012
11.00am-12.00pm
(repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm)
UCC 98.3FM
listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/983fm
*no podcast this week, see blog for audio/video links

Playlist
Frankie Rose - Gospel / Grace
Field Music - A new town (playing Primavera Festival, Barcelona, May 31-June 2)
Land Lovers - The cinema bell (playing The Pavilion, Cork, Feb 11, w/ Tieranniesaur & Squarehead)
Tune-Yards - My country (playing Button Factory, Dublin, Feb 12, w/ Thread Pulls)
Somadrone - Reckoning
Chairlift - I belong in your arms
Simian Ghost - Free agent
Sebastian Rochford feat. Gina Loring & Ranjana Ghatak - Love a sacred path (Days & Nights at the Takeaway 1)
Lower Dens - Brains
Best Boy Grip - Barbara
St Vincent - Cheerleader (playing Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, Feb 27)
School of Seven Bells - Lafaye (radio edit)
Jagwar Ma - Come save me
Hooded Fang - ESP
Justice - On 'n on (playing Live at the Marquee, Cork, June 7)

*next week's show will feature music from Dustin O'Halloran, Hauschka, Johann Johannsson, Matthew Bourne & Milagres, among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Days And Nights At The Takeway 1: January by Days And Nights At The Takeaway

ESP by HOODED FANG

St Vincent is Large

2012-02-07T13:30:00.000-08:00

The incomparable St Vincent has just bestowed on the world her new video, to current single Cheerleader, directed by Hiro Murai. It kind of channels Gulliver in Lilliput via Charlie Kaufman, which is appropriate given the satirical bite in the lyrics. Like her home country, she manages to look magnificent even as she breaks into pieces.

As we're at it, the version of Cheerleader from her set for the 4AD Sessions was premiered this week too, via this link -

http://www.ifc.com/shows/portlandia/blog/2012/02/st-vincent-4ad-sessions-premiere

Here it is, so you can get a close-up of her spitting out those memorable guitar riffs.

Phantom Limb – The pines (Naim Edge)

2012-02-03T05:20:00.000-08:00

Knockout title track of debut album from the Bristol 5-piece, featuring the justifiably centre-stage vocals of Yolanda Quartey, a classic soul voice of Staples Singers proportions, and backing worthy of The Band.

Tennis on ATP

2012-02-03T04:44:00.000-08:00

New releases on the ATP label are always worth keeping an eye on. They've just announced the signing of Denver's Tennis, with first single from new album Young and old, Origins, due out this side of the world on Feb 13th. And you'll have to travel a long, long way to find a finer slice of alternative pop. Shades of Stereolab in the pulsing organ and fuzzy bass riff, with the female vocals leaning more towards a Lykke Li-style delivery. And backing vocals. Off the beat and so much more than just backing. Overall, intoxicating would be a word.

And on the other side of the double-A is this beauty. Jesus, that woman's voice does things to me. Good things. For those interested, the video, directed by Scott Laidlaw & Frank Rinaldi, also features two pretty girls holding hands, walking through the fields and playing with each other's hair.

Tennis - Deep In The Woods from ATP Concerts & Recordings on Vimeo.

Playlist 206 - Jan 31 2012

2012-02-01T12:49:00.000-08:00

Songs of Green Pheasant / Teenwolf from danny bird on Vimeo.

Jagwar Ma

2012-02-01T07:01:00.000-08:00

A new name on me today, looking like some kind of exotic mis-spelling.

Here's what I know. They (He/She - although they seem like a band) are from Sydney, Australia, according to their facebook page. This song shares something with compatriots Tame Impala, in terms of a strong, 60's, beat-driven foundation. It also ends like a house 12". The opening drumbeat sounds like a 60's sample I just can't put my finger on. It chugs along magnificently, pulling you in its wake. There are handclaps involved. And it's not a little funky.

And the video, which tells us nothing extra about the band.

Nor does this, the B-side, mixed by Ewan Pearson, except that they're fond of clubby breakdowns. Available to buy on Feb 27th, through The Blue Rider label.

Days & Nights at the Takeaway

2012-02-01T03:58:00.000-08:00

Everyone likes a good takeaway. But this one isn't the kind that gives you a food hangover at 3 o'clock the next morning. It's actually a monthly singles club, conceived by Seb Rochford of jazz fusion outfit Polar Bear, recorded at his own studio and released on The Leaf Label (they've been busy this year already), in the form of a 2-track digital bundle.

Each single will feature a different set of collaborators, along with Rochford himself, and will release on the last Friday of every month. (The "Takeaway" moniker derives from Rochford's studio, which was a food emporium in a previous life.) As you'll notice above, the first release is Love a sacred path, featuring LA poet and singer Gina Loring and British Indian vocalist Ranjana Ghatak. It's got a great ringing vocal delivery and a swirling monster of a backbeat, as you can hear for yourself here.

Days And Nights At The Takeway 1: January by Days And Nights At The Takeaway

This is some footage of Gina recording her vocal track in the Takeaway studio.

There's also a filthy/gorgeous remix of the track by LV. Get full info and sign up on this link -

http://www.thetakeaway.net/

Get going, some eye-catching guests/collaborators are promised throughout the year.

Frankie Rose - Interstellar (Memphis Industries)

2012-01-31T09:58:00.000-08:00

This is the second album from Miss Frankie Rose, former drummer to the stars (both Vivian and Dum Dum Girls, as well as Crystal Stilts), who struck out magnificently with The Outs in 2010. If you’re expecting more of the same this time around (surf guitars, reverb, shoegaze), then for the most part you’d be wrong. Minus band, Frankie has retained a certain dreamy, enigmatic quality but the musical arrangements are radically different, with synths predominant.

So there are the lovely synth-pop stylings of Gospel/Grace and Daylight sky (both overlaid with chiming C86 guitars, one of a few nods back to the previous album). That latter song also has more than a hint of ambient soundscapes about it, with a bubbling, gurgling bass running through – an atmosphere repeated on the beautiful Had we had it, with its ecstatic, twinkling chorus – which, along with the epic vocal treatments, would tend to remind you a little of the euphoric melancholy of Apparat. Apples for the sun is a cosmic chill-out, built around an insinuating keyboard loop, like a slowed-down techno workout, complete with false fade.

The songwriting (and singing) has a wistful, stargazing quality, in keeping with the album title, as on Pair of wings – “perched above the city on a pair of power lines”. Elsewhere there is moondust, weightlessness, walking on clouds and two suns noticed passing by. The overall effect is of an 80’s English indie band marooned on a space station and communicating home via hushed, nostalgic murmurings of love, set among celestial choirs; occasionally, the ambient haze clears just enough to make out the remembered pitter-patter backbeats and surf guitar twang. Beguiling is the only word for it.

*This is the first single from the album, and more or less the only track available online for now. Although lovely, it doesn't exactly convey the full drift of the album. But I'll post up more links as soon as they come on stream...the album's out in March.

Markus Mehr, new album

2012-01-27T11:33:00.000-08:00

Just time for a quick mention of new music from friend to the show Markus Mehr, from Augsburg in Germany. A couple of years ago, he brought out a really beautiful album of ambient instrumentals, Lava, on the ever wonderful Hidden Shoal label, embroidered with his distinctive guitar drone designs. At the time, he spoke to me on the phone from Germany - that's an interview you can find over there on the right of the page (that's right, I'm not going to link it, don't be lazy, it's just over there...).

The new material is a 2-track album called In, the first part of an ambitious-sounding triptych, with On and Off to follow later this year. Personally, I can't wait. Check out a couple of excerpts from In down here, it's therapeutic.

Playlist 205 - Jan 24 2012

2012-01-25T07:38:00.000-08:00

Matthew Bourne - Montauk Variations (The Leaf Label)

2012-01-24T10:11:00.000-08:00

I'm no jazz afficionado. I probably know as much about jazz as the average pop music fan. Which is why I'd previously only been aware of the pianist Matthew Bourne at arm's length, through references in regular mailings from the Leaf record label. Now, Leaf are releasing what is apparently his first ever solo studio album, and his first outing with the label. From what I read about Bourne, it sounds like he doesn't wear the jazz tag easily; he's been a serial collaborator over the last decade - piano trios, free jazz/noise groups and even a project seeking out broken pianos, Songs from a lost piano (which sounds intriguing and I must check it out this minute).

I've no intention of attempting anything like a review of this album. I'm not qualified and I hate it when people wander into territory where they're clearly out of their depth. However, there is an obvious "way in" for me here - a version of the Charlie Chaplin tune Smile, which originally appeared with the 1936 film Modern Times. Here's Chaplin's original tune, embellished with unashamed sentimentality, complete with gushing orchestral arrangement.

And this is what Bourne does with it, a kind of deconstructed, slowed-down cousin of the original. The pieces are put back together more poignantly, if anything, with great emotion in the minor shadings and tentative variations in tempo. He mentions in the sleevenotes that he thought at one time the album was about his own "personal unquietness, solitude and heartbreak", but then goes on to discount this theory. There's certainly plenty of evidence in Smile to back it up.

That was filmed at Leeds College of Music before Christmas. Here are the other pieces filmed at that session, including one, Unloved, which hasn't been released anywhere and is the most gorgeous soundtrack to heartbreak you'll hear. There's also a John Zorn tribute, complete with elbows and all.

You'll find Smile here on soundcloud aswell, along with two other of the most straightforwardly beautiful and elegant pieces on the album, Infinitude again and Juliet, the latter featuring what you could only call a lachrymose cello.

For some reason, something about this album reminds me a bit of last year's Green and grey by Julia Kent, which consisted of solo cello, layered and looped, with some sparing field recordings. Something about the sombre mood, probably, but also the fact that someone with obvious training has opted to simplify and peel back their technique. In the process, I'd say Montauk Variations is a very modern album - chaotic, frenzied in places but ultimately leaving you with a feeling of solitude and romantic melancholy. My knowledge of jazz is limited, but as pop music goes, I love it.

Lots more info about Matthew Bourne on hos own website
http://matthewbourne.com/

Grimes Video and Live dates

2012-01-24T08:31:00.000-08:00

We played some new music from Claire Boucher, aka Grimes, from Montreal on the show the other week. Genesis is her first release under the 4AD umbrella (and what an ample, pleasant, accommodating umbrella it is), ahead of a new album Visions later in the year. Her album on Lo Recordings, Halfaxa, made quite an impression around here last year (check the Best of 2011 Review here), and the new song is in a similar vein of murky electronica with jittery beats and ethereal, layered vocals - intriguing and fairly uncategorisable really. There's some video for the track from Yours Truly below. She plays a whole host of European dates in the summer, including at the Primavera Festival in Barcelona, Field Day in London and Forbidden Fruit in Dublin.

Yourstru.ly presents: Grimes "Genesis" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.

Hooded Fang on Full Time Hobby

2012-01-23T04:28:00.000-08:00

Been enjoying listening to new Full Time Hobby signings Hooded Fang, from Toronto. They released their second album, Tosta Mista, on Daps Records in Canada last year, it'll be available this side of the Atlantic in March. FTH are giving away a free download of album track ESP through their website on this link

http://www.fulltimehobby.co.uk/home/hooded-fang/

or directly on soundcloud here.

Hooded Fang - ESP by fulltimehobby

It's like a jumpy 60's garage Nugget dug out of the archives, with a fantastic fuzz bass and unexpectedly (but brilliantly) smooth pop vocal. Below is another album track, the equally great Highway steam, which had me from the second the triumphant ascending trumpet line kicked in.

Check the rest of the album on soundcloud here, it's well worth your time.

http://soundcloud.com/hoodedfang/

A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Half Moon Theatre Cork, live review

2012-01-21T04:14:00.000-08:00

A Winged Victory for the Sullen played in Cork during the week - part of their still-proceeding European tour - a gig I'd been looking forward to with great anticipation for quite a while. If you've never heard the name before, there's some notes on the album on this link.

http://www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/09/winged-victory-for-sullen-winged.html

The gig turned out to be a memorable experience, one that will stay with me for some time, a bright, shining highlight of the last 12 months of music (which have been pretty memorable all round). Here's a review I wrote for Cork-based webzine Noise, which is reprinted in full from this link, with kind permission.

http://wearenoise.com/index.php/2012/01/a-winged-victory-for-the-sullen-half-moon-theatre-cork-jan-18th-2012/

The Half Moon Theatre (the radical wing of Cork Opera House) moonlights as an arthouse cinema these days, so no venue could be more appropriate, I thought, to house the first Irish performance of A Winged Victory for the Sullen. The duo, formed by pianist and composer Dustin O’Halloran and ex-Stars of the Lid founder Adam Wiltzie, released their self-titled debut last year on the Erased Tapes label and the melancholic, cinematic grandeur of its instrumentals swept it into many Best of 2011 lists, including my own.

Sleeping Dog, including Adam Wiltzie on guitar and keys, took the stage first. The rest of the line-up comprised piano/synth/guitar, drums and percussion (including, barefoot, ankle bracelet bells, a first on me). They played plaintiff folk songs with some interesting deep end synths/samples which had promise, but the overall effect was strangely lacklustre, a little too polite, even, something which seemed to be reflected by the muted audience reaction.

After a short intermission, the main event, O’Halloran and Wiltzie joined onstage by cello (the aforementioned ankle bell percussionist back again, still barefoot), violin and viola. Dustin O’Halloran did the introductions with a quick mention of his grandparents’ emigration from Ireland in a previous lifetime. Then the cinema screen behind the band suddenly lit up with a giant close-up of a moon, half in shadow, making its way slowly but irresistibly from wall to wall. The strings swayed into motion and as the notes gradually coalesced against the backdrop of this huge lunar landscape, the most spectacular opening to a gig I have seen in years had been achieved.

Over the next hour or so, the roughly 130 souls in the sold-out venue had the joy of the wonderfully expressive and delicate piano playing of O’Halloran (at times managing to conduct the strings aswell by standing, crouched at the instrument, using his head instead of a baton), contrasted with the great subterranean machine hum from Wiltzie’s bank of effects across the stage. Each ineffably gorgeous melody from their album was aired, each had the same unforced emotional pull of the studio recordings. My own favourite was the superbly titled Steep hills of Vicodin tears, an ambient-classical masterpiece featuring oscillating guitar drones, church organ and a straightforwardly beautiful 2-note string arrangement. The 12-minute A Symphony Pathetique was also glorious, not a second wasted, ending in a kind of gentle cosmic fizz of string saws. As an encore, they even managed to pull an audacious rabbit out of the hat in the shape of Arvo Part’s Fratres for strings – as coups de graces go, a pretty monumental one in my book.

I did have a couple of qualms about the gig. I was occasionally sorry for the applause between pieces (and it was generous and wholehearted), because of its effect of breaking the spell of the music. I wondered if an unbroken flow might have been better, but then again that might have changed the endearingly humble – I’d almost say indie - demeanour of the performance into a more buttoned-up, classical atmosphere. Which is far from where this music is located (did I mention the cellist was barefoot?). I also wondered, if this is cinematic music, what does it soundtrack? Space? The natural world? Consciousness? The backdrop (which moved on from the moon to other, apparently random, images) might have matched the mood of the music better.

However, when I say these were minor misgivings, I mean they were overwhelmingly outweighed by the majesty of the sounds. Lead by the magnetic O’Halloran, with Wiltzie a more reticent, enigmatic, bear-in-the-shadows presence, A Winged Victory for the Sullen lived up to their name and produced a compelling and completely uplifting performance full of emotion, and surely, one of the gigs of the year already.

Playlist 204 - Jan 17 2012

2012-01-18T03:37:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 204
Tues Jan 17 2012
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
https://rapidshare.com/files/3707911098/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_Jan_17_2012.m4a

Playlist
Josh T. Pearson - Woman, when I've raised hell (alternate version) (Best of 2011)
*d'load an interview with JTP from 2011 here:
http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/05/josh-t-pearson-interview.html

The Lost Brothers - The goodbye kid (playing Workman's Club, Dublin, Jan 27, on Certain Three Tour, w/ Katie Kim & Puzzle Muteson, plus other venues)
Frankie Rose - Know me
Milagres - Here to stay
Band of Clouds - No maps no compass
Charlotte Gainsbourg - Out of touch
A Winged Victory for the Sullen - Steep hills of Vicodin tears (Best of 2011) (playing Half Moon Theatre, Cork, Jan 18)
Tune-Yards - Doorstep (Best of 2011)
*d'load an interview with Merrill Garbus from 2010 here:
http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/03/tune-yards-interview.html

Neville Skelly - Poet & a dreamer (Best of 2011)
*d'load an interview with Neville from 2011 here:
http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/07/neville-skelly-poet-dreamer-setantapias.html

Field Music - A new town (playing King's College, London, Feb 24)
*d'load an interview with the Brewis brothers from 2010 here:
http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/11/field-music-2010-interview-new-music.html

Songs of Green Pheasant - Teen wolf
Matthew Bourne - Infinitude (Montauk Variations album launch, Cafe Oto, London, Feb 15)
The Byrds - She don't care about time

*next week's show will feature more music from Band of Clouds, also Phantom Limb, Peaking Lights and Mint Julep, among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Outside Broadcast by BAND OF CLOUDS

Band of Clouds - Outside broadcast (Granny It's OK to Experiment)

2012-01-17T14:44:00.000-08:00

Meet Waterford-based but Cork-born John Haggis, and an album made with friends (including one Katie Kim and Richard from House of Cosy Cushions) at his Granny It’s OK to Experiment studio in the south-east of Ireland during a period of recovery following an operation.

No maps no compass is a great wall of sound to start, with beautiful shoegazey vocals offset by a heavily filtered trumpet, and drumbeats tripping over themselves. So long Bitter Root Hill features a circling Spanish guitar figure, followed by a fantastic deep-sea rumble of a bass underneath a lost, echoing voice. The great silence of snow transforms a simple plucked banjo and spoken word recitation into a looping vocal refrain with cinematic backwash of uplifting and epic proportions. Another haunting male falsetto adorns the brooding closer Happy endings (tending to put one in mind of Luke Temple from Here We Go Magic a little).

Stitched throughout the album are bits of film dialogue, harmonicas, violins, birdsong, recorders, cellos, dulcimer and more. Juliette Binoche, Alan Lomax and WB Yeats all make appearances. The whole thing meanders hazily and very, very pleasantly with the ramshackle charm of a home recording, without sacrificing any of the affecting melodies or rich arrangements. With its endearing sense of adventure, this downtime project beats the shit out of most people’s uptime efforts.

Outside Broadcast by BAND OF CLOUDS

Field Music – A new town (Memphis Industries, single)

2012-01-11T08:33:00.000-08:00

The Brewis brothers pick up from where they left off with 2010’s mini-epic double album (Measure), with this first single and tantalising taster from the upcoming Plumb. This tune takes a thread from its predecessor in the form of a twitchy, insinuating guitar riff and shuffling drumbeat, but distinguishes itself with some lovely prog stylings and the sound of gurgling water. Field music, as the man said.

*You'll have to take my word on the above as a listening link is not yet available, but here's the equally infectious (I keep thinking about) A new thing to tide you through.

Field Music - (I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing by memphisindustries

**Here tis now, glorious.

Playlist 203 - Jan 10 2012

2012-01-11T07:31:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 203
Tues Jan 10 2012
11.00am-12.00pm
(repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm)
UCC 98.3FM
listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/983fm
*no podcast this week - see below for video/audio links

Playlist
Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons - You're a song (that I can't sing) (Best of 2011)
Chairlift - Met before
AU - rr vs d
Grimes - Genesis (playing Forbidden Fruit Festival, Dublin, June 3; also Primavera Festival, Barcelona, May 31-June 2)
Matthew Bourne - Smile (Montauk Variations album launch, Cafe Oto, London, Feb 15)
Emphemetry - Old dreams
Metronomy - The look (Best of 2011)
Connan Mockasin - Forever dolphin love (Best of 2011)
Dark Captain - Submarines (Best of 2011)
Slow Place Like Home - Carte blanche
Other Lives - Tamer animals (Best of 2011)
Oliveray - Harmonics
Bruce Haack - Program me

*next week's show will feature more music from Matthew Bourne, also Charlotte Gainsbourg, Frankie Rose and Field Music, plus we finish a review of the Best of 2011 with Josh T. Pearson, Tune-Yards & A Winged Victory for the Sullen

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Montauk Variations by Matthew Bourne

Twinklebox | Old Dreams by Emphemetry

Oliveray - Harmonics by erasedtapes

Slow Place Like Home - Coastal hubs for chivalry EP (self-released)

2012-01-11T04:08:00.000-08:00

Donegal-based Keith Mannion brings us a set of diverse but finely balanced electronic (semi-) instrumentals. Opener Carte blanche somehow manages to combine a propulsive rhythm with a sunny, chill-out atmosphere, helped by children’s playground recordings. The title track takes a smoky, trumpet-lead jazz tune and cuts it into glitchy, hip hop pieces. We learned to tilt at windmills has something of Air about it, all synth power chords and wide open spaces. My own favourite is the post-kosmische hum and swell of The long and winding tide, culminating in a beautiful, heartfelt melody. Encouraging stuff from the Atlantic North-West corridor.

Coastal Hubs for Chivalry EP will be available for free download from the SPLH Bandcamp page from Monday, January 23rd

Emphemetry digital release

2012-01-06T02:29:00.000-08:00

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 more to Old dreams too. Birkin says -

My studio, where my piano is kept, is situated in a very old mill at Darley Abbey in Derby. There are crooked passages between the mill’s buildings, bits of machinery from dead industries, and strange empty structures with walls swelled by years. In the foggy none-days of mid-late winter this place has an uncanny resemblance to how I picture the shadowless walled town in the ‘end of the world’ scenario from Haruki Murakami’s novel Hard-boiled Wonderland & The End Of The World. I started bringing the book with me to recording sessions, and taking it to the ghostly pub around the corner. With every chapter I could point to a place or think of a person in the world around me here that fit the words perfectly.

Birkin plans to make Old dreams the first of a series of piano and string pieces based on the novel, to be released as an EP later this year. Which is fascinating and we await developments with interest.

Out on Time Travel Opps on Jan 16th and on emphemetry.bandcamp.com.

Playlist 202 - Jan 3 2012

2012-01-04T07:38:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 202
Tues Jan 3 2012
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
https://rapidshare.com/files/387608023/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_Jan_3_2012.m4a

Playlist
Phantom Limb - The pines
Peaking Lights - Tiger eyes (Laid back) Adrian Sherwood/On U Sound remix)
The Last Sound - Only the lonley know the glow is failing (Best of 2011)
Julia Kent - Tithonos (Best of 2011)
AU - Solid gold
A Winged Victory for the Sullen - A Symphony Pathetique (Montauk in February remix) (playing Half Moon Theatre, Cork, Jan 18)
Flare Acoustic Arts League - Hideous ethnic stereotype
Atlas Sound - Mona Lisa
Trailer Trash Tracys - Candy girl
Penny & the Quarters - You and me (from the sound track of the film Blue Valentine) (Best of 2011)
William D. Drake - Wholly holey (Best of 2011)
Saso - Carousel
Katherine Blake - Maiden of the mountai deep
Jean-Claude Vannier - Le ballet des accoucheuses (Best of 2011)
The Doomed Bird of Providence - The bell of the Jardines

*next week's show will feature music from Chairlift, AU and Bruce Haack, plus we continue a review of the Best of 2011 with Metronomy, Connan Mockasin, Dark Captain and Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Best of 2011 Round-up

2012-01-03T10:34:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year. Just a quick hello to land you with a list of 46* (edit - make it 48) albums that did the rounds many times in here in the past year. Another great year for pop music, I think you'll agree. A couple of other miscellaneous highlights underneath. I'm not bothering with lots of links and pictures and videos in this post - that's what the rest of the blog is for, go digging and you'll find. Most, if not all, of the list have been represented in these pages over the last year. And I might also mention that interviews with Crystal Stilts, Efterklang, (The) Caseworker, Hotels, Josh T. Pearson and Neville Skelly from the year gone by are also over there on the right hand side of the page. I may well have left a few people out, and there were a few borderline cases - if anyone has any particular beef with me on what's below, give me a shout. I'm all on for, like, engagement. Say no more.

(I'm making one exception, I can't get enough of this)

The Last Sound: Only the Lonely Know the Glow is Failing from Osaka Records on Vimeo.

Albums
St Vincent – Strange mercy (4AD)
Tune-Yards – whokill (4AD)
North Sea Radio Orchestra – I a moon (The Household Mark)
William D. Drake – Rising of the lights (Onomatopoeia Records)
The Doomed Bird of Providence – Will ever pray (Front & Follow)
Bill Ryder-Jones – If… (Double 6)
The Phoenix Foundation – Buffalo (Memphis Industries)
The Go! Team – Rolling blackouts (Memphis Industries)
Dutch Uncles – Cadenza (Memphis Industries)
Essie Jain – Until the light of morning (Light of Morning)
Julianna Barwick – The magic place (Asthmatic Kitty)
John Stammers – John Stammers (Wonderful Sound)
Gablé – Cute horse cut (LoAF)
Josh T. Pearson – The last of the country gentlemen (Mute)
Grimes – Halfaxa (Lo Recordings)
Nils Frahm & Anne Muller - 7 fingers (Erased Tapes)
Emphemetry - A lullaby hum for tired streets (Time Travel Opps)
Hotels - On the casino floor (Hidden Shoal)
Toro y Moi - Underneath the pine (Carpark)
Julia Kent - Green and grey (Tin Angel Records)
Left with Pictures - In time (Organ Grinder Records)
Damon & Naomi - False beats and true hearts (Broken Horse)
Connan Mockasin - Forever dolphin love (Because)
Crystal Stilts - In love with oblivion (Fortuna Pop)
Antonymes - A licence to interpret dreams (Hidden Shoal)
Metronomy - The English Riviera (Because)
EDM - Night people (Western Vinyl)
Bill Wells & Aidan Moffat - Everything's getting older (Chemikal Underground)
Josh Ottum - Watch TV (Tapete Records)
A Winged Victory for the Sullen – A Winged Victory for the Sullen (Erased Tapes)
Various Artists - Our lives are shaped by what we love: Motown's Mowest Story 1971-1973 (Light in the Attic)
Roll the Dice – In dust (Leaf)
Eden Ahbez – Eden’s Island (Trunk Records)
Peter Broderick – Music for Confluence (Erased Tapes)
Nils Frahm – Felt (Erased Tapes)
Apparat – The devil’s walk (Mute)
Dark Captain – Dead legs and alibis (LoAF)
Rachael Dadd – Bite the mountain (Broken Sound Records)
Barry McCormack – Small mercies (Hag’s Head)
Land Lovers – Confidants (Popical Island)
The Beach Boys – The Smile Sessions (Capitol)
Various Artists - The Roots of Trash and Garage (Chrome Dreams)
Grizzly Bear (and others) - Blue Valentine OST (Lakeshore Records)
Jean-Claude Vannier – Electro Rapide: Experimental Pop Instrumentals from Jean-Claude Vannier's Vintage Vaults (Finders Keepers)
Neville Skelly – Poet and a dreamer (Setanta)
*Olafur Arnalds - Living room songs (Erased Tapes)
*Gang Gang Dance - Eye contact (4AD)

Also moved by
Record Labels
Liz Green
Other Lives
The Last Sound
Patrick Kelleher & His Cold Dead Hands
Rozi Plain
(The) Caseworker
Dum Dum Girls
Low
Cloud Control
Tarwater
Larsen feat. Little Annie
Anna Calvi
Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons
Peaking Lights
My Brightest Diamond
Pepe Deluxé
Bruce Haack
The Scaramanga Six
Mint Julep
Ryan Gosling & Michelle Williams

Films
Blue Valentine
Incendies
An Island

Gigs
Efterklang (Savoy Theatre, Cork)
Crystal Stilts (Grand Social, Dublin)
Fleet Foxes (Marquee, Cork)
Ryan Francesconi (Triskel Christchurch, Cork)
Thread Pulls (Crane Lane Theatre, Cork)
Josh T. Pearson (Crane Lane Theatre, Cork)
Johann Johannsson (Triskel Christchurch, Cork)

Beach Boys' Smile Special Podcast

2011-12-23T04:11:00.000-08:00

Just in case it gets lost in the Christmas haze, the promised podcast for the recent Smile Special is now available. The special guest for the show was my UCC 98.3FM colleague Stephen Purcell and you can read Stephen's accompanying article on the background to the Smile sessions, as well as plenty of other Beach Boys and Brian Wilson related discussion, on this link. Enjoy and compliments of the season.

http://www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/12/beach-boys-smile-special.html

Smile Pod by Underground of Happiness3

Manu Chao in Arizona

2011-12-22T04:00:00.000-08:00

You won't hear much more from me this side of January but some more news from Arizona caught my eye lately.

So you know the way Manu Chao is such a cool f**ker , in the sense of knowing where real people are at? Well at the end of his US tour in September, he held a free gig in a car park in Phoenix, Arizona as a protest against that state's (particularly odious, I think it's fair to say) immigration policies. The gig was held in conjunction with the National Day Labourer Organising Network (NDLON), which has a particular interest in assisting migrants, through its Alto Arizona campaign.

Arizona is home to an interesting spot called Tent City, set up by Sherrif Arpaio of Maricopa County. This place would rank high on a list of grotesque human creations, on account of the major Guantanamo vibe it has going on. Illegal or undocumented migrants are held here in (you guessed it) tents, and undergo degrading treatment, including the full extremes of desert temperatures. Chao, with bandmate Madjid Fahem, visited Tent City and performed his song Clandestino. Alex Rivera filmed the proceedings and the footage is being hosted by NDLON - http://www.altoarizona.com for full details. The clip is below.

The whole thing would tend to remind one of Woody Guthrie's travels through the US in the 1930's (when coincidentally, another economic depression was taking place), visiting labour camps and workers' strikes, and penning tunes like Vigilante Man along the way. Anyway, kudos to Manu Chao for drawing attention to cause that lies somewhere north of unfashionable.

Playlist 201 - Beach Boys' Smile Special

2011-12-15T03:01:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 201 - A Special on The Beach Boys' Smile album, with guest Stephen Purcell
Tues Dec 13 2011
11.00am-12.00pm
(repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm)
UCC 98.3FM
listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/983fm
*no podcast this week due to a technical hitch, but check out Stephen's superbly detailed accompanying blog piece here
http://theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com/2011/12/beach-boys-smile-special.html

Playlist
The Beach Boys - Our prayer (Smile 2011; also 20/20 1969)
The Beach Boys - Gee (Smile 2011)
The Beach Boys - Heroes & villains (Smile 2011; also Smiley Smile 1967, different version)
The Beatles - Tomorrow never knows (Revolver 1966)
The Beach Boys - God only knows (Pet Sounds 1966)
The Beach Boys - Cabin essence (Smile 2011; also 20/20 1969, different version, as Cabinessence)
The Beach Boys - Child is father of the man (Smile 2011)
The Beach Boys - Vega-Tables (Smile 2011; also Smiley Smile 1967, different version as Vegetables)
The Beach Boys - AllI wanna do (Sunflower 1970)
The Beach Boys - Let us go on this way (Love you 1977)
Dennis Wilson - Pacific Ocean Blue (Pacific Ocean Blue 1977)
The Beach Boys - Good vibrations (Smile 2011; also Smiley Smile 1967)

*the next show is Jan 3rd 2012
**A Happy & Peaceful Holiday to everyone

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

The Beach Boys' Smile Special

2011-12-14T13:36:00.000-08:00

This week's show (the last of the year before the Christmas break) was another special (after last week's Christmas extravaganza, which, not surprisingly also featured The Beach Boys), dedicated to The Beach Boys and in particular the Smile album, which was finally officially released this year. I was joined on the show by guest Stephen Purcell, who is a colleague at UCC 98.3FM.

After meeting for the first time recently at the station, we quickly established a love of The Beach Boys as something we had in common. However, whereas I would call myself a big fan of the band, Stephen is "hardcore". So, to mark the end of the year when the original Smile recordings were finally released, we decided to devote a show to talking about the album, the band and Brian Wilson as a creative force in popular music. And Stephen also kindly agreed to contribute a superbly detailed background to the album, giving a great insight into the personalities involved in these landmark recordings.

*Unfortunately, due to a technical hitch on the day, the planned podcast of the show didn't materialise, but we're hoping to rectify this, stay tuned...

**And...here it is, the promised re-recorded podcast of this programme, recorded on location in the very welcoming surroundings of The Oval Bar in Cork. Again, my thanks to Stephen for taking the time to contribute to the show.

Smile Pod by Underground of Happiness3

Smile...it's the Beach Boys
by Stephen Purcell

My first taste of The Beach Boys kind of went hand in hand with my first taste of "egg and chips". Every Friday afternoon my mother would do the grocery shopping which in turn meant that dinner duty was in the hands of my old man. Now before the days of Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver, there was a man who went by the name Billy Purcell. Although Stuffed Duck Charles Vaucher wasn't a common occurrence, egg and chips certainly were. A typical Friday would consist of the three siblings, me, my younger brother and my younger sister, sitting around the kitchen table to the sounds of my Dad’s cassette stereo. Most of the records he owned had been copied on to a c90 for easier access. The soundtrack to these Friday afternoons consisted of Gene Pitney, Roy Orbison, Neil Young, The Beatles, Abba, The Eagles, The Police, The Carpenters and one other band I seemed to take to more so than any of the others. That band...The Beach Boys.

Having established that my first introduction to the band was at the dinner table, my first actual purchase came in the form of a double cassette by the band called California Gold. It was a German-only release that somehow made its way to a second hand shop in Limerick. This double album (in essence a greatest hits collection) was where my real obsession with the Beach Boys began.

You might ask...why the Beach Boys? why not the Beatles? or even the Eagles for that matter. In retrospect, the angelic five piece vocal harmonies, songs about sun, surf and Southern California, coupled with a real sense of positivity and the American way just said something to me. After all, growing up in Limerick City in the mid 80's wasn't exactly overwhelming. Maybe as a young eight year old it was my first introduction to escapism. An interesting observation would be to ask myself the same question now, 25 years later. Is it actually a means of escapism? Does the music take me somewhere else? or do I just recognise the extraordinary talent that is Brian Wilson? What exactly is it about The Beach Boys that is so fascinating to me? and more importantly why am I sitting here in my jocks writing about it?

Before I touch on the beauty that is the Beach Boys Smile album it would be interesting to note the events that led up to its release. These are important details that explain why it took over 40 years for the Smile album to be released in its original form.

Brian Wilson formed the Beach Boys in 1961. The band was made up of Brian (bass / vocals), his brother Dennis (drums / vocals), his other brother Carl (guitar / vocals) his cousin Mike Love (vocals) and a school friend Al Jardine (guitar / vocals). Although Brian was deaf in one ear, that didn't stop him writing hit after hit in the early sixties. Most if not all of the early Beach Boys singles were songs about surfing and cars. The crazy thing is Brian couldn't even swim, not to mind surf. The only one that did any real surfing was Brian’s little brother and Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson. It was Dennis who suggested to Brian that he should write some songs about surfing as it was what the kids did and could relate to at that time.

By 1964 the Beach Boys had six albums under their belt. Including an unheard of 3 albums alone (Surfin USA, Surfer Girl and Little Deuce Coupe) released in 1963. By 1964 the stress of road travel coupled with a self-created stress of maintaining a high level of creativity in regards to composing and producing took its toll on Brian. In December of that year, just a week before the release of the first Beach Boys Christmas album, Brian suffered an anxiety attack on a flight to Houston, Texas. Shortly afterwards Brian announced his withdrawal from touring to concentrate entirely on song writing and production. For the remainder of '64 and into '65 Brian was replaced by renowned country singer Glen Campbell.

Too many Beach Boys fans would go on record to say that 1966 and 1967 are recognised as the most important years in the bands career. I would argue that 1965 changed the direction of music forever. A brave statement but one I would certainly stand by. With Brian now fully retired from live touring, he became infatuated with the studio. At the suggestion of close friends Jan & Dean (60's surf song specialists), Brian began using session musicians in the studio. While the Beach Boys remained on the road through 1965, Brian was maturing at an enormous pace. The songwriting had become both intricate and adventurous, the production was getting bigger and bolder and more importantly, 1965 found Brian opening up lyrically.

Coming out of 1965, it was obvious that a lot of pressure had been on Brian since Surfin' Safari started their string of chart success in 1962. At this stage Brian was only 23 years old and already the Beach Boys had produced thirteen US top 20 singles, as well as ten full length albums. Eight of which made it into the top 10 in the billboard chart.

That December, 1965, The Beatles released Rubber Soul, an album which enthralled Brian Wilson. Until then, each Beach Boys album (like most rock albums) contained a few "filler tracks" like cover songs or even stitched-together comedy bits. Wilson found Rubber Soul filled with all-original songs and, more importantly, all good ones, none of them filler. Inspired, he rushed to his wife and proclaimed, "Marilyn, I'm gonna make the greatest album! The greatest rock album ever made!”

Not only did Lennon and McCartney influence Brian to take on this massive feat, the introduction of psychedelic drugs made Brian turn his attention inward and probed his deep-seated self-doubts and emotional longings. The result, the 1966 masterpiece Pet Sounds. There was some resistance from within the band to this new direction. Lead singer Mike Love is reported to have been strongly opposed to it, calling it "Brian's ego music", and warning the composer not to "fuck with the formula". Even the album’s title derived from Love’s "Who's gonna hear this shit? The ears of a dog?"

However, that didn't stop Brian from hiring LA based session musicians the Wrecking Crew, The Wrecking Crew were known to be the most successful group of studio musicians in studio history, contributing in large part to the success of Phil Spector and his "wall of sound" recordings. The album, which features the songs God Only Knows, I Just Wasn't Made for these Times and Caroline, No, is ranked by many critics among the greatest records ever recorded. (Rolling Stone magazine, for example, placed Pet Sounds at No. 2 on their list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.) Paul McCartney named it his favourite album and called God Only Knows one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

With the help of lyricist Tony Asher, Brian pushed the boundaries for a rock n roll record. Never before had anybody heard a production so elaborate. Layers of vocal harmonies, coupled with sound effects and unconventional instruments such as bicycle bells, buzzing organs, harpsichords, flutes, Electro-Theremin, dog whistles, trains, Hawaiian-sounding string instruments, Coca-Cola cans and barking dogs, along with the more usual keyboards and guitars. Let it be said that Brian did it first. Not John Lennon, not Paul McCartney, not any of the Beatles. Before the over-hyped release of Sgt Peppers’ Lonely Hearts Club Band, Brian Wilson lead the way for innovation, musical creativity and sheer genius in the world of music composition and production. Although it wasn't recognised as a masterpiece at the time, particularly in the States, where its initial release failed to reach gold status. It was the UK that really "got it" and over the years championed the importance of Pet Sounds. In recent years, It has been ranked at #1 in several music magazines' lists of greatest albums of all time, including the (cough) NME, The Times and Mojo Magazine. As mentioned above, It was also ranked 2 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.

So, put yourself in Brian Wilson’s shoes. It's the fall of 1966, you're 24 years old, You've just released one of the most influential albums of all time, You've spent more than $50,000 from February to August that year trying to record one song (Good Vibrations), your record company aren't too happy with the success and direction of the previous album (Pet Sounds) and now you plan is to "take your work on Pet Sounds to a new level".

This "teenage symphony to God" would become the Smile album. Originally titled Dumb Angel, the Smile album was to become the most famous unreleased album of all time. Born out of the Pet Sounds sessions (more importantly the Good Vibrations sessions), Smile, put simply, is a work of intense creativity. Good Vibrations was created by an unprecedented recording technique: nearly 30 minutes of barely-related musical sections were recorded, then painstakingly spliced together and reduced into a three-minute pop song. Many within the Beach Boys' camp were sceptical, but the song quickly became the band's biggest hit yet, which went to #1 in both Britain and the USA. Smile was intended to be an entire album produced in the same fashion.

Noting the previous lyrical collaboration with Tony Asher on Pet Sounds, this time it was the turn of singer, musician, composer and lyricist Van Dyke Parks. Wilson invited Parks to write lyrics for the new album in the Spring of 1966, when the project was provisionally being called Dumb Angel. The two quickly formed a close and fruitful working relationship, and between April and September 1966 they co-wrote a number of major songs, including Surf's Up, Heroes and Villains, Wonderful, Cabin Essence and Wind Chimes, all of which were written in the famous sandbox that Brian had installed in his home.

Their first collaboration was Heroes and Villains. Wilson has recalled that when he played the song's descending melody line to him, Parks devised the opening line on the spot. Their most acclaimed song, Surf's Up, was written in the course of a single night. It is also interesting to note that Tony Asher wrote the original lyrics for Good Vibrations, but the hit version released in October 1966 featured a new set of lyrics co-written by Brian Wilson and Mike Love. Wilson had in fact asked Parks to write new lyrics for Good Vibrations, but Parks declined, preferring not to enter a project which was already underway.

Although the concept for Smile was never 100% established, several key features of the album are generally acknowledged: both musically and lyrically, Wilson and Parks intended Smile to be explicitly American in content. This was a reaction to how popular British music, and more importantly the worldwide dominance of The Beatles, had become. It was supposedly conceived as a musical journey across America from east to west, beginning at Plymouth Rock and ending in Hawaii, taking in some of the great themes of modern American history and culture, including the impact of white settlement on native Americans, the influence of the Spanish, the Wild West, and the opening up of the country by rail road and highway.

Wilson's experiments with LSD were undoubtedly another significant influence on the texture and structure of the work, and one of the strongest intellectual influences on his thinking at this time was his friend Loren Schwartz, who is said to have introduced Brian to both marijuana and LSD. British publication The Guardian recently commented on the re-release of Smile by saying "Isolated, dislocated, scared: Smile often sounds like the work of a very lonely man. There's not much in the way of company when you're way ahead of everyone else". A valid statement in my opinion that is backed up by a notable but not very publicised fact. Writer Bill Tobelman suggests that Smile is filled with coded references to Brian's life and his LSD experiences (a presumed Lake Arrowhead, California 'trip' being the most important). He also argues it was heavily influenced by Wilson's interest in Zen philosophy - notably the Zen technique of using absurd humour and paradoxical riddles (the koan) to liberate the mind from preconceptions — and that Smile as a whole can be interpreted as an extended Zen koan. Tobelman modified his theory upon discovering the construction of the Smile riddle was based upon Arthur Koestler's book, The Act of Creation.

According to most sources, Brian Wilson began to encounter serious problems with Smile around late November 1966; some of this can be ascribed to his increasingly fragile mental state (by then, he was beginning to exhibit signs of depression and paranoia), but it is now evident that there was vehement opposition to the project from within the band. It is reported that, during the recording session for the Fire section of the Elements Suite (Smile tracks) at Gold Star Studios on November 28, Brian became irrationally concerned that the music had been responsible for starting several fires in the neighbourhood of the studio. For many years, it was rumoured that Wilson had tried to burn the tapes of this session, but that was not the case, although he did abandon the Fire piece for good. No recording of anything but the introduction to the original "Fire" tapes has been released, though most of the song was heard on the 1985 Beach Boys television special (and subsequent VHS and DVD release), The Beach Boys: An American Band. It has also been noted in several accounts that Parks deliberately stayed away from the session (during which Wilson encouraged the musicians to wear toy firemen hats), and that he later described Wilson's behaviour as "regressive".

In addition to Brian's possible mental health problems, and his many personal, family and creative pressures, there were other significant business and legal pressures surrounding the Beach Boys during the recording of Smile. These included contractual disputes with Capitol over royalty payments and the band's attempt to terminate their then contract, which was a legacy of Murry's management (the Wilsons’ father), and establish their own label, Brother Records.

During early 1967, Brian's behaviour became increasingly erratic, and his use of drugs escalated, but while this was a concern for some of his friends, he was still completely functional in the studio. Although stories of his sometimes bizarre "off-duty" behaviour became the stuff of legend, the session musicians who worked with him during this period have stated that he was totally professional in the studio.

In retrospect, arguably the most significant reason why Smile was repeatedly postponed, and finally scrapped, was conflict within the group, particularly the increasing antagonism between Mike Love and the Wilson/Parks partnership, although there was also opposition to the project from Capitol Records and from the band’s manager, and father of Brian, Carl and Dennis, Murry Wilson.

Love later stated that he was suspicious of the new friends with whom Brian was associating — and that his opposition to these people whom he regarded as hangers-on, who were exploiting Brian and supplying him with "hard" drugs — was another major source of conflict. Love has suggested that some of those who have since been critical of him did so because he had told them to "take a hike". Love also denied disliking Pet Sounds, and claimed that he liked the Smile music and only disliked the lyrics.

However, this is strongly disputed by several other participants, most notably Van Dyke Parks. Responding to Love's claims in a letter to the editor of UK music magazine Mojo, Parks was strongly critical of Love's comments — which he described as "revisionism" — and he was unequivocal in citing Love's hostility to Smile as one of the major factors in Brian's decision to abandon the project. In 2004 Brian stated that Love's antagonism was one of the major deciding factors in the cancellation of the album, stating "he hated it."

"The reasons that I didn't release Smile for one, Mike didn't like it...he hated it. He hated it."

Another significant event, cited in the Beautiful Dreamer documentary, was Brian's first time hearing The Beatles' new single Strawberry Fields Forever (presumably around mid-February 1967, the US release date – ed.). He heard the song while driving his car, and was so struck by it that he had to pull over and listen; he then commented to Michael Vosse, his passenger, that The Beatles had "got there first". Although he apparently later laughed about that comment, the stunning new Beatles production had affected him deeply.

After this episode, Wilson vehemently continued work, mostly on Heroes and Villains. Throughout the first half of 1967, the album's release date was repeatedly postponed as Wilson tinkered with the recordings, experimenting with different takes and mixes, unable or unwilling to supply a completed version of the album. In early March 1967, after gradually distancing himself from Wilson and the group and frustrated by the lack of progress, Van Dyke Parks finally quit the project.

Capitol Records evidently still hoped to the last that Smile might eventually appear, but on 6 May, only a few weeks before the release of The Beatles' groundbreaking Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, The Beach Boys' press officer Derek Taylor announced to the British press that the Smile project had been shelved, and that the album would not be released.

Jack Rieley revealed during a 1996 online Q&A that the commercial failure of Heroes and Villains was the final cataclysmic blow to the Smile project and Wilson's self-confidence as a musician. Brian had expected that Heroes & Villains would be greeted by Capitol as the work which put the Beach Boys on a creative par with the Beatles. All the adoration and promotional backup Capitol was giving the Beatles would also flow to his music because of Heroes & Villains, he thought. And the public? It would greet Heroes & Villains with the same level of overwhelming enthusiasm that the Beatles received with record after record. As it was, Capitol execs were divided about Heroes & Villains. Some loved it but others castigated the track, longing instead for still more surfing/cars songs. The public bought the record in respectable but surely not wowy zowy numbers. For Brian, this was the ultimate failure. His surfing/car songs were the ones they loved the most. His musical growth, unlike that of Lennon and McCartney, did not translate into commercial ascendancy or public glory.

Fast forward to 2003 and the USA's Showtime Cable Network are recording a documentary on Brian Wilson. In the documentary Brian performs pieces of Smile by himself on a piano in the front room of his house. Thrilled with the documentation, Brian decides not only to revisit and complete the entire album (from mostly memory), he shocks many of his peers and even his band mates by deciding to perform it live in concert.

For the new version Brian, Darian Sahanaja (keyboard / vocalist of the Brian Wilson band), woodwind player/string arranger Paul Mertens, and lyricist Van Dyke Parks (original Smile collaborator) based their arrangements on the original, unreleased Beach Boys tapes to give it a coherent and fresh, updated sound. Although released to critical acclaim, this version of Smile went under the title Brian Wilson presents: Smile and featured amongst others: fresh takes of Brian's vocals (at 62 years old), none of the original Beach Boys’ voices (instead the parts were taken by Brian's current touring band), extremely over-produced versions of the songs that lacked the raw, emotive undercurrent of the original Smile sessions (for many years bootlegs of the original Smile sessions had been distributed to satisfy fans).

Welcomed by and large, the 2004 version of Smile went on to win a Grammy, while also receiving rave reviews worldwide. While Beach Boys fans rejoiced in its release, a lot of the hardcore contingent still wanted to see Capitol Records release the original Smile tapes from the vault.

On February 3, 2011, Alan Jardine (Beach Boys guitarist / vocalist) spoke to examiner.com to inform them that "Capitol Records plans to issue a Beach Boys version of Smile sometime this summer to begin the celebration of The Beach Boys’ 50th anniversary. Smile is the Holy Grail for Beach Boys’ fans, so it will be good." Jardine also mentioned that The Beach Boys "didn't do any new recording. I'm happy to see it finally come out. Brian’s changed his mind about releasing the material, but it was inevitable, wasn’t it?" Being part of the "hardcore contingent" I for one didn't take much notice. Every other week there was to be a new version of Smile. One week it's rumoured to be an instrumental-only version (as the original vocal tapes were missing), the next it's the original voices of the Beach Boys edited to modern day instrumentation. On March 11th, 2011, Capitol Records issued a press release stating that Smile would finally be released in all its glory in summer 2011.

The original instrumentation, the original voices, the original production, the original players, the original concept, the original tapes...finally, after 43 years we were going to get our hands on The Smile Sessions.

Many believe that the track listing presented on The Smile Sessions is different than it would have been on the original 1967 Smile album. Interviews by Mark Linett (producer) and others say that they "presented the whole piece as close to it as was envisioned, or as is envisioned, as possible". Of course, no one can ever know what exactly the album would have been like had it been released in 1967. Brian Wilson has stated that the exact running order was not decided upon until 2004, and that the original Smile would have been less "uplifting".

From the stunning accapella opener Our Prayer, to the roller-coaster pop perfection of Good Vibrations, Smile is simply stunning. Every ingredient of a classic album is present. It is easy to see why Brian Wilson is constantly referred to as a Genius; the song structure, the unconventional rhythms and bass lines, the vocal arrangements, everything Brian touched was so far ahead of its time. The original tapes also have the original Beach Boys voices which makes it even more appealing. The original Carl Wilson vocal on the track Wonderful for example stands head and shoulders above Brian's 2004 effort. Likewise on Wind Chimes, there is something about the presence of Carl on this track that reflects its true beauty. Let's not forget, although Brian is credited for one of the most renowned Beach Boys songs God Only Knows, the lead vocal, again, was that of Carl Wilson. Smile really is a see-saw of emotions. The only way to truly experience its majestic beauty is to hear it for yourself. Some may argue that Pet Sounds is the Beach Boys "piece de la resistance" while others may argue that in fact Smile is the band at their true peak. The funny thing is, although both albums are truly astounding, I believe Brian Wilson took it one step further with the less publicised release of the Beach Boys’ Love You album in 1977. However, like any good Wilson story, that era (and album) also comes with a storied past.

As a huge fan of both Brian and the Beach Boys, I have had the pleasure of seeing him play live many, many times. Both my (poor) girlfriend and I have met many many people that became great friends over the years from these gigs. From salesmen to journalists, priests to doctors. teachers to musicians, film makers to shipping dockers. All connected through one man and his music. There is nothing like a post-Wilson gig piss-up. Most of the hardcore fans book in to the same hotel. The guitars are out and the sing along takes in just about every obscure Wilson track that ever was. Hours upon hours of endless harmony, if you will. Do we all sit around and talk about Brian and his music like some sort of weird cult. It would be easy to think that way, but you'd be far off the mark. At the end of the day it's just music. It just happens that Brian Wilson had some serious issues and is viewed as somewhat of a cabbage from the constant excess.

I don't see any difference between the “cult of Brian Wilson” and going to see a Munster match in Paris, a United match in Old Trafford or a Justin Bieber gig in the 02. It's something that we all love, it's something we're all invested in both mentally and emotionally, it's something that might pick us up when we're feeling down or fire us on when we've had a rough day. Really, it's not rocket science, it's only music.

I remember the first time I met Brian in person. It was at one of his London shows a good couple of years back. I had no idea what I was going to say to him, and to be honest, looking back there isn't anything I could have said without sounding like a cornball. I opted for the handshake, accompanied by "I really enjoyed the show, the songs sounded great" to which he replied, only as Brian could, "out of sight man". After years and years of obsessive listening, collecting, reading and watching, I can honestly say I couldn't have asked for a better answer.

Christmas Podcast

2011-12-12T14:59:00.000-08:00

The Underground Of Happiness Xmas Special Dec 6 2011 by underground of happiness2

I thought I'd put a bit more flesh on the bones of the Christmas Special, this week's show, which was also the 200th episode of The Underground of Happiness. That's the wave form above (apologies for the delay before Hank Snow, the CD player was acting up). I've stuck in a few extra tunes and links as well below, just for the craic. Merry December everybody.

1. Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby please come home)
My personal favourite from what is probably the definitive Christmas album in pop music, Phil Spector's 1963 classic of the genre. Put aside the irony of a Jewish man celebrating the main Christian holiday (Spector was reportedly tickled at the idea of the royalties that Irving Berlin, also Jewish, raked in for White Christmas). Forget the schmaltz of Spector's monologue on Silent Night. Focus on the brilliantly simple between-the-eyes lyrics of Ellie Greenwich & Jeff Barry, Jack Nitzsche's thrilling arrangement, the Wall of Sound and that voice. You just can't fake a voice like that (even if it was recorded during sweltering August).

2. The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick
Taking a cue from Phil Spector was his huge fan Brian Wilson. This song first appeared as a single in 1963, but this version made its debut on Christmas with The Beach Boys, in time for Yule 1964. It's a tried and trusted driving Beach Boys backbeat (it could be California girls, in fact), with added Christmas trimmings. But as usual it's the vocals that stay in the mind longest, a delirious barbershop quartet gone wrong/right. If you need to be distracted from something at this time of year, do it with this.

*This interview with Jack Wagner appears on the 2004 release of the Christmas album. I find something very poignant in Brian's halting, tentative delivery, I must say.

3. Gruff Rhys - Post apocalypse Christmas
I love Gruff Rhys. Not content with creating an art installation earlier this year, made out of miniature shampoo bottles culled from hotel rooms - and of course the accompanying Hotel Shampoo album - he's releasing what he's calling a "secular Christmas EP" this December, including this great sub-T-Rex groove, the title track. The EP also features the catchily titled Slashed wrists this Christmas, supposedly a song based on the real experience of a friend of Rhys', who attempted suicide after falling victim to depression at Christmas. Offhand, I can't think of anyone else capable of keeping it this real in pop music. Plus, while I'm a sucker for Christmas songs, I also love audacious antidotes to the (often blindly optimistic) festivities.

Gruff Rhys - Post Apocalypse Christmas by PIASGermany

4. Joni Mitchell - River
As with a few in this set, a song that's not about Christmas as such. I remember my sister having the Blue album on vinyl and I heard this first in her flat. Apart from the brilliant strangeness of Mitchell's voice, the idea of skating away on a river (while no doubt commonplace in icy Toronto) seemed like a completely alien concept to a 19-year old from wet and mild Cork.

5. Gene Wilder - Pure imagination
From Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, the 1971 classic adaptation of the Roald Dahl book directed by Mel Stuart. It's always seemed like a Christmas film because of the heavy tv rotation every December. The music and lyrics by the great partnership of Anthony Newley and Leslie Bricusse are just perfect, the musical direction by Walter Scharf is a joy, with swirling violins and twinkling vibes, and Gene Wilder's singing is brilliantly light and carefree. It's one of the pinnacles of pop music, basically.

*I have to add this too, from the same soundtrack, a melody so poignant it could make grown men weep, carried by the luminous vocals of Diana Sowle.

6. Dylan Thomas - A child's Christmas in Wales (Extract 1)
Thomas reads his own writings here, and his inflections alone make this unmissable. Plus the turn of phrase is obviously genius. I mean, two-tongued sea, come on.

All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.

*John Cale's solo piano adaptation, the live version contained on Fragments of a rainy season, would have made the list too if time had allowed. This is the not-quite-as-good-in-my-book album version from 1973's Paris 1919 .

7. Esquivel - Parade of the wooden soldiers
Esquivel's version of All of me is the signature tune to the show, so I had to have some space age bachelor pad music in the Christmas special. I have no idea about the background to the tune, just that it's also on the Phil Spector Christmas album (see no. 1 above). That's a good enough recommendation for me. And it's another brilliantly bonkers arrangement by the Mexican legend. No listening link for this, you'll just have to use the soundcloud mix at the top of the page.

*And swing your hips to these zoo-zoo-zoos on Christmas Day.

8. Emmy the Great & Tim Wheeler - Jesus the reindeer
In the list for the innovation of naming an extra reindeer, and also in order to provide power pop ballast in the set. Plus I have a soft spot for Emmy the Great ever since she did that duet with Darren Hayman last year.

*This song, also from the new Emmy/Tim Christmas album, sees Tim channelling his inner Beach Boy and is also top class.

9. Tom Waits - Silent night (live)
I came across this on a mixtape somewhere and I reckoned the set was a bit short on spiritual content. Tom gives good spiritual, in fairness. This studio version draws on a certain New Orleans sound and for some reason plays twice in the link.

10. Cocteau Twins - Frosty the snowman
The rare sound of Liz Fraser singing actual words. Not surprisingly, she manages to rescue the most familiar of Christmas songs from a land far beyond cliché. Who'd have thought it, the combination of an imagined snow creature and a shoegaze guitar backdrop is the perfect match.

*This is the other side of the 1993 CD single, giving Winter Wonderland a trippy, dubby treatment.

11. Lost Idol - Molten snow
This fantastic mood piece comes from the other James Dean, the one who runs the Cookshop label in Brighton. This tune featured on his 2010 album, Brave the elements, and sounds a bit like Massive Attack if they got into medieval music. Again, the connection to Christmas is tenuous. But it manages to catch something brooding, ancient and pre-commercialised about this time of year and is totally brilliant.

12. Louis Armstrong with The Commanders - Zat you Santa Claus
Proof that Santa calls to New Orleans too. And that Satchmo has the best asthmatic wheeze ever recorded onto tape.

13. She & Him - The Christmas Waltz
I'm a sucker for Zooey and Matt as it is, so the news of a Christmas album from them was a pushover. Her voice here is like the marzipan under the icing on a Christmas cake. I like that, by the way.

She & Him - The Christmas Waltz by MergeRecords

14. The Superimposers - Xmas in Hawaii
From the re-released Christmas again! EP by the London band. A Christmas set has to have some sunshine pop. To be honest, I could have picked the title track but Hawaii and those ukuleles sold me.

1 Christmas Again! by Wonderfulsound

15. Dylan Thomas - A child's Christmas in Wales (Extract 2)
More razor-sharp consonants. The longer I listen to his delivery, the more I'm convinced Dylan Moran has learned a lot from him.

But here a small boy says: "It snowed last year, too. I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea."

16. The Temptations - Someday at Christmas
The set needed some authentic soul music. This is a knockout example from the 1971 album The Christmas Card on Motown. The sentiment echoes the 70's shift by black artists into social commentary (Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye), while the string-laden arrangement foreshadows the Philadelphia sound.

17. Múm - Babbi segir
A beautiful seasonal release from the Icelanders on Morr Music. Better to use their own words.

This 7inch contains two interpretations of conventional Icelandic christmas songs: Nú er Gunna á nýju skónum ('Now Gunna is wearing her new shoes') and Babbi segir ('Daddy Says'), both of which are traditionally sung around the tree at Christmas-dances. They are arranged for guitar, autoharp, kazoos and voices and are sung in the aforementioned terrible beautiful style. The sensation is as it should be, slightly festive stuff yet melancholic, floating somewhere between pure naiveté and lucid Kitsch: It's really just like christmas.

Fantastic.

18. Hank Snow - The reindeer boogie
From 1953, a sort of country hoe-down on Christmas Eve, culled from one of those great compilations you find in service stations. A Canadian who moved to Nashville, my cursory research tells me that Snow introduced Elvis Presley to Colonel Tom Parker. Rather than dwell on this mixed blessing, get a load of some swing.

19. Can - Silent night
A wonderfully perverse, but still strangely beautiful, version of the old standard by the veteran krautrockers, first released in 1976. I'd have Can at every party, so why should Christmas be any different.

20. Nat King Cole - A house with love in it (live)
There had to be a crooner in the set and here's the best ever. It's on another one of those thrown-together compilations that purists would no doubt decry. Listening back to it now, I'm not sure there's actually any Christmas connection in the song, but who gives a monkey's when the singing is this good...

*While we're at it, let's address the elephant in the room. One of the all-time classic Christmas songs, written in 1944 by Tormé & Wells. In certain moods, I find it way too full of schmaltz for my taste. But can I encourage you, with me, to forget what you know, imagine hearing it for the first time, and acknowledge the genius in the man's delivery. After all, just cos something's clichéd, doesn't mean it's not a work of art.

21. Low - Last snowstorm of the year
Trademark, beyond-gorgeous vocal harmonies from Alan & Mimi Sparhawk, from their 2001 Things we lost in the fire album. It's so deceptively simple, you'd think anyone could write a Christmas pop classic.

*Here's a more overt Christmas connection from Low, with sleigh bells and the voice of an angel.

22. Dean & Britta - He's coming home
Given away to fans by the band a year ago. Britta Phillips sounds a deadringer for Nancy Sinatra on this, and in fact the arrangement has a distinct air of Lee Hazlewood about it too. Just a hunch, but I wonder if Dean Wareham wrote this originally about his son (...he went away to school last September...). However you cut it, it's a glorious piece of longing, yearning dream-pop.

*And as a bonus, let's end on this gorgeous slice of Scottish soul, from the great Camera Obscura (another tune that would have made it into the second hour, if there was one). Have a cool Yule.

**As we're at it, speaking of schmaltz and Irving Berlin, let's have this too. I understand that Bing Crosby might be a bit rich for some tastes, but I must admit I love his musical work in films (see also True love from High Society, his duet with Grace Kelly). This is the movie version of White Christmas from the 1954 film of the same name (a remake of the 1942 original Holiday Inn), with Danny Kaye opposite Bing, along with Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen.

Rozi Plain, new single

2011-12-10T02:25:00.000-08:00

A tune that we've played on the show several times of late is the new Rozi Plain single, See my boat, which comes out next week on Need No Water Records (on lovely red vinyl, too). The Bristol-based artist has been touring the UK lately with KT Tunstall and is very much part of what seems to be a vibrant folk-ish scene in that city, along with the likes of This is the Kit and Rachael Dadd (both of whom you've heard of here before).

The single starts life as an intimate, fingerpicked affair with chiming guitars, before transforming into a delirious folk stomp with handclaps, massed vocals and a four to the floor bass drum. There's even room for a swirling ending with some French jazz violin on board. It's massive craic altogether, and what's more, it's a storming tune.

http://soundcloud.com/neednowater/roziplain-see-my-boat

The previous single, Humans, is similarly irresistible, in a folk music gone off the rails, kind of way. The video features balloons, a beach and has the endearing air of silent cinema about it.

AU sign with The Leaf Label

2011-12-08T03:21:00.000-08:00

One of our favourite labels around here, Leaf, has announced the signing of Portland, Oregon duo AU, whose 2008 album Verbs was also much-loved. (Luke Wyland and Dana Valatka played in Cork in 2009 actually and I met Luke for an interview, a piece of audio I must re-upload here once the album comes out.) Their new album Both lights will come out in January, as well as the first single from it, Solid gold. It starts with a tender piano intro, before embarking on a galloping synth groove, and later introduces a stew of guitars, horns and percussion mixing under an Afrobeat rhythm. There's even a hint of brass band oompah at the end. It's all very, very beguiling and I can't wait to hear the album.

AU - 'Solid Gold' by theleaflabel

This is the great rr vs d from Verbs.

The Doomed Bird of Providence - new single on Front & Follow

2011-12-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

We've mentioned The Doomed Bird of Providence in these pages several times this year (go here and here to refresh your memory.) Their excellent album Will ever pray on Front & Follow is one of my favourites of 2011. The Manchester label have just announced a single from the band, containing two new songs, although they tie in closely with the content of the earlier album.

The Bell of the Jardines features enterprise, kidnap, ambition and finally leprosy on the high seas off Australia's north-east coast, in the life story of one Frank Jardine. It's really stirring stuff, driven along by wailing fiddles, see-sawing accordions and a thundering marching drum. It comes across like The Bad Seeds in bed with The Pogues, with a compelling singing narrator in ex-pat Aussie Mark Kluzek. Folk music like they don't make any more (well, very few anyway).

The death flurry employs electric guitar and bass further forward in the mix to brilliantly convey the visceral terror of Norfolk Islanders heading out to sea on whaling boats. The ghostly, fingerpicked guitar pattern 1m30 from the end is enough to send me over the edge. More effective than any ghost story (and, if you need it, the perfect antidote to Christmas).

The Doomed Bird of Providence - The Bell of the Jardines / The Death Flurry by frontandfollow

Christmas Special - Playlist 200 - Dec 6 2011

2011-12-07T04:50:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 200
Tues Dec 6 2011
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
http://soundcloud.com/underground-of-happiness2/christmas_special_2011

Playlist
Darlene Love - Christmas (Baby please come home)
The Beach Boys - Little Saint Nick
Gruff Rhys - Post apocalypse Christmas
Joni Mitchell - River
Gene Wilder - Pure imagination (from the soundtrack of the film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory)
Dylan Thomas - A child's Christmas in Wales (Extract 1)
Esquivel - Parade of the wooden soldiers
Emmy the Great & Tim Wheeler - Jesus the reindeer
Tom Waits - Silent night (live)
Cocteau Twins - Frosty the snowman
Lost Idol - Molten snow
Louis Armstrong with The Commanders - Zat you Santa Claus
She & Him - The Christmas Waltz
The Superimposers - Xmas in Hawaii
Dylan Thomas - A child's Christmas in Wales (Extract 2)
The Temptations - Someday at Christmas
Múm - Babbi segir
Hank Snow - The reindeer boogie
Can - Silent night
Nat King Cole - A house with love in it (live)
Low - Last snowstorm of the year
Dean & Britta - He's coming home

*next week's show is a Beach Boys Special to mark the recent release of Smile, and will feature Stephen Purcell as guest

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Bill Ryder-Jones – If… (Double 6)

2011-12-01T03:47:00.000-08:00

It's been a good month for Double 6. The ex-Coral guitarist’s debut album is an imagined soundtrack for the Italo Calvino novel If on a winter’s night a traveller. I’m a pushover when it comes to soundtracks (isn’t all music a soundtrack for something?), but even so this is still a beautiful album with lots of shading and texture, aswell as an emotional punch. The considerable talents of the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra are employed throughout for many memorable and sweeping, cinematic moments (the majestic Enlace, in particular, has a series of wonderful brass smears), but for my money the vocal pieces have the most impact. The plaintiff Leaning (Star of Sweden) has an air of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci to it; By the Church of Apollonia sets a wordless, female keen brilliantly against a military tom beat, which manages to suggest Ennio Morricone without sounding anything like him as such; the miniature guitar picking and intimate/lost vocal of Le Grand Désordre are striking enough, even before a stoic cello wraps the whole thing in ointment; and the stunning Give me a name has a hushed quality, wonderfully underlined by swathes of orchestral deep end. The whole album is laced together with delicate, restrained piano figures.

To record a soundtrack to someone else’s book is a brave move in itself. The story goes that Ryder-Jones is uncertain of his future plans, to the point of being unsure if he’ll even record again. Somehow that makes me like this album even more, the fact that it’s not a stepping stone towards something else. Purely for the love of it. And it’s intended to stand or fall on its own merits. There’s no doubt it stands. It’s a fascinating piece of work and it hopefully won’t be the last we hear of BRJ.

Bill Ryder-Jones 'Give Me A Name' by DominoRecordCo

Playlist 199 - Nov 29 2011

2011-11-30T04:58:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 199
Tues Nov 29 2011
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
https://rapidshare.com/files/563072973/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_Nov_29_2011.m4a

Playlist
St Vincent - Year of the tiger (playing Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, Feb 27 2012)
Pepe Deluxé - The storm
Field Music - (I keep thinking about) A new thing (playing Deaf Institute, Manchester, Feb 19 2012)
Atlas Sound - Lightworks
Chairlift - Sidewalk safari (edit)
Black Cherry - Modern lover
Antonymes meets Slow Dancing Society - That moment
Eden Ahbez - Mongoose (Trunk Records)
Kramies - Inventors
Rozi Plain - See my boat
Tom Waits - Chicago
KXP - Easy
Portishead - Chase the tear
Real Estate - It's real
Lambchop - If not I'll just die (playing Vicar Street, Dublin, Mar 3 2012)
Saso - Carousel

*next week's show is the 200th edition and is a Christmas Special featuring music from Cocteau Twins, Low, Can, Darlene Love, Joni Mitchell, Esquivel, The Temptations & The Beach Boys among others, as well as spoken word from Dylan Thomas

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

The Storm (Radio Edit) by Pepe Deluxé Official

New Bill Wells album on Double 6

2011-11-29T10:19:00.000-08:00

One of the best albums of this year was the collaboration between the veteran Scottish pianist Bill Wells and ex-Arab Strap man Aidan Moffat, Everything's getting older on Chemikal Underground (go here to refresh your memory). Wells has a new album coming out on Double 6 next week, Lemondale, for which he recruited a host of Japanese musicians for one day's recording in Tokyo, as well as Jim O'Rourke, who lives there now I believe. The press release has this nice detail -

Musicians that had never met and had come from different sides of the tracks suddenly found themselves together in the same recording booth. Tori Kudo, self proclaimed Japanese 'King Of Error' was coupled with virtuoso pianist Satoko Fuji, a classically trained graduate of Berkley Music College in Boston.
The recording also brought together instruments as seemingly incongruent and unrelated as a modified electric fan played by Tetsuya Umeda and the entirely unique and heavenly voices of Saya, from 'Tenniscoats' and Kazumi Nikaido, one of Japan's leading contemporary vocalists.

Sounds interesting on paper, says you, and you can listen to some of the lovely results on this 3-track sampler.

Bill Wells 'Lemondale' Sampler by DominoRecordCo

Different pans recalls Jim O'Rourke, during some of his creamier, Bacharach-inspired moments, but there's an element of amiable chaos afoot that old Burt would never have stood for. And the title track comes on like a politely demented cover version of Whiter shade of pale, with a great air of naive art about it and some obscure machinery in the background threatening to go out of control. It's pop music living on the edge and more power to Wells for pushing the boat out.

Peaking Lights follow-up

2011-11-29T09:53:00.000-08:00

You'll remember we mentioned Peaking Lights recently, signing to Weird World and all that. Well here's another beguiling little off-the-beaten-track number from the reissued album, 936 . The video by Cam Archer reflects that mood - just a girl putting junk together in a field, with gorgeous close-ups - although I'd feel bad about treating a pair of Converse the way she does.

The band are also streaming various 936 remixes this week, including this one.

Peaking Lights - Marshmellow Yellow / Amazing And Wonderful (Main Attrakionz MAN WORLD remix) by Weird World Record Co

You can check the others on a dedicated website, http://www.936.fm/, including Adrian Sherwood, patten, DaM-FunK, Damu, Cadenza, Sunless ’97, d’Eon, Doldrums and Maria Minerva. They're wonderful, basically.

My Brightest Diamond + Pepe Deluxé

2011-11-24T03:18:00.000-08:00

A few things of note on the Asthmatic Kitty front. First a new video from the great Shara Worden, that is My Brightest Diamond, taken from the current album All things will unwind (you'll find other Diamond-related info here and here). At the risk of sounding churlish, I must admit this video gives me a bit of a rash - it's just sooo right-on. However, it's chamber pop, people, and we have religious obligations around here about catchy, effervescent pop tunes played on orchestral instruments.

My Brightest Diamond - ALL THINGS WILL UNWIND: High Low Middle from Asthmatic Kitty on Vimeo.

And next to something so bonkers, it makes Gruff Rhys look staid and conformist (which he's not, at all). The name of the group is Pepe Deluxé, new to me. Have a read of this first.

This is the first ever composition for The Great Stalacpipe Organ, the largest musical instrument in the world, located deep in the caverns of Luray, Virginia. The Organ consists of hand-tuned ancient stalactites of varying sizes that are hit with solenoid-actuated rubber mallets. The mallets are controlled by a custom made pipe organ console. It took us over six years of research and planning so you could enjoy these two minutes of unique sounds in the comfort of your dry, warm home.

"In the Cave" is part of the esoteric pop opera album "Queen of the Wave", released in January 2012.

Isn't it beautiful? Personally, I'd like to know more about what exactly they spent those six years doing (and how do you tune a stalactite?), but I'll settle for hearing the gorgeous, musical results. Here's what the actual ice structures look like, by the way. Pretty strange and wonderful.

"Esoteric pop opera", you say. Colour me fascinated. And by coincidence, another track from the band is here. I feel myself duty-bound to reprint this description -

sounds like the theme from “Thunderbirds” meets a Samurai playing surf music

If, like me, you find that ticks all the necessary boxes when it comes to pop music, look no further than this link. Download it now, play it loud through large speakers in public and let's change the world kids.

Pepe Deluxé, "The Storm" by asthmatickitty

Playlist 198 - Nov 22 2011

2011-11-23T04:51:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 198
Tues Nov 22 2011
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
https://rapidshare.com/files/1569957061/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_Nov_22_2011.m4a

Playlist
Left with Pictures - River Avon (playing Arctic Circle @ Union Chapel, Islington, Dec 10, *midday)
Olafur Arnalds - Near light
Bachelorette - Blanket (playing Whelan's Upstairs, Dublin, Dec 1)
Butcvher the Bar - Alpha Street West
The Grunts - Into submission (playing The Roundy, Cork, Dec 8)
Crystal Stilts - Dark eyes
*d'load i'view with Crystal Stilts here
http://soundcloud.com/underground-of-happiness2/crystal-stilts-interview

Bill Ryder-Jones - Give me a name
Future Islands - Balance (playing Whelan's, Dublin, Mar 10 2012)
Mint Julep - Save your season
Jean-Claude Vannier - Qu'est-ce qui fait courir les crocodiles (from the soundtrack of the film Qu'est-ce qui fait courir les crocodiles)
Brigitte Fontaine - Il pleut
Dark Captain - Right way round (playing Union Chapel, Islington, Nov 26, *midday)
Link Wray - Rumble (The Roots of Trash & Garage)
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Shore points (playing The Garage, London, Jan 5, w/ Milagres)
Fireworks Night - One winter, one spring
Alela Diane - Desire

*next week's show features music from Field Music, Eden Ahbez, St Vincent, Kramies, Rozi Plain and Black Cherry among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Field Music - 2010 Interview + New music

2011-11-20T08:32:00.000-08:00

We love a bit of Field Music around here. So imagine how happy we were to hear the news about the new Field Music album, due out in February 2012. It'll be called Plumb, and will be released on Memphis Industries. Here's the stream and download.

Field Music - (I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing by memphisindustries

It sounds very much like a continuation of where (Measure) left off, which is to say, great. And it seems timely to upload the interview with the Brewis brothers, Peter and David, from September 2010, when they played in Cork shortly after that year's Electric Picnic Festival. It features...

...Stratocasters vs Gibson SG's, a village in County Durham called Noplace, Sunderland's shipbuilding past, The Beatles' Happiness is a warm gun, the predictability of pop song structures, Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds, teenage pub gigs, singing like Joe Cocker, and more...

Field Music Interview by underground of happiness

My other notes at the time as follows -

It was a pleasure to meet a band so relaxed and willing to chat in leisurely fashion without an eye on the clock (the result, maybe, of having spent a spare day in Cork, a few days after their Electric Picnic Festival appearance). After the interview, I accompanied the brothers, with bass player Ian, around the corner to Fast Al's for superior pizza slices, eaten al fresco on Winthrop St (where several passers-by on their way into the gig approached to say hello to the band), whereupon the conversation turned to the Ireland and England football teams' European Championship qualification hopes, the merits (many) of the Hi-B Bar and the ubiquitous presence of pre-programmed radio.

As for the gig in Cyprus Avenue, this is the tightest band I've heard in a long time. But they were still loose, if you know what I mean, playing off each other, as the stop-start arrangements demand, and locking down (I think the term is) some wonderful grooves. It's the first time I've ever seen a guitarist and drummer swapping duties (the musical equivalent of the brothers finishing each others' sentences?), but they didn't miss a beat in the process. It was interesting to think back to Peter talking in the interview about his desire to play more guitar on this album (Measure); I thought that very appealing air of unpretentious northern Englishness was most evident when he was at the piano. The tunes (of which there are many great ones on the current album alone - Measure, Them that do nothing, Something familiar etc.) shone through in all their whimsical, bittersweet glory. They also rocked the joint sideways.

That last album was easily one of the best things released in the first decade of the 21st century. This is what I wrote at the time.

Field Music – Field Music (Measure) (Memphis Industries)
This was released in March, but it's so good it's worth waiting for. 20 insinuatingly catchy, slightly surreal pop songs from the Brewis brothers, which manage being angular without sacrificing the tune. The spectre of XTC and Abbey Road-era Beatles is wrapped warmly around the songs (even Led Zeppelin in places - in fact, a lot of the album sounds like one man's love affair with a Gibson SG). The songwriting is intimate, domestic, concerned with work and relationships, always wryly optimistic. Perfectly pitched, mostly guitar-based arrangements (sprinkling of piano and strings here and there), including some great backing vocal innovations (I particularly love the oooh's in Each time is a new time). There are hooks all over the shop. Rubber soul doesn't get any better than this.

Let's relive some of its greatness, while we get psyched up for the new album.

Olafur Arnalds follow-up

2011-11-18T04:35:00.000-08:00

As a follow-up to the post the other day on Olafur Arnalds' new release, Living room songs, you can also stream my favourite track from it on Erased Tapes' soundcloud now. The aquatic electronics and sumptuous strings make it worth every second of the 3.28.

Ólafur Arnalds - Near Light by erasedtapes

Olafur Arnalds – Living room songs (Erased Tapes)

2011-11-16T04:19:00.000-08:00

It’s a triple whammy for Erased Tapes this month (following Nils Frahm and Peter Broderick albums). We were big fans around here of Arnalds’ last album, …and they have escaped the weight of darkness. This latest project saw him create and record a song from scratch every day for a week in October, making the results available immediately in video format to fans, from his apartment in Reykjavik. It’s a stunningly beautiful collection, laden with strings but lightened by skipping electronics, and grounded with trademark lachrymose piano. I notice Arnalds is currently on tour with Ryuchi Sakamoto and there is a valid comparison to be drawn in the air of dignified melancholy you’ll find here. Superb.

Peter Broderick – Old time / Solace in Gala (Erased Tapes, single)

2011-11-16T04:05:00.000-08:00

Another notable release from the prolific Mr Broderick. It’s a double A-sided single featuring the only sung track from Music for Confluence (album reviewed here), backed with an instrumental from another soundtrack he’s found time to work on, Grace and Mercy, a documentary about Haiti after last year’s earthquake. Purchasers of the single get the added benefit of a digital download of the full 14-track soundtrack to the latter. Having heard it - it’s another hauntingly beautiful series of piano and guitar-centred instrumentals wrapped in an ambient gauze - I recommend you do the same. The man’s ability to evoke a range of emotions from a few (deceptively) simple materials is quite amazing. The wonderfully woozy Fibromyalgia, with a chorus of sliding, drunken violins, is my own favourite.

Peter Broderick – Old Time (Official Music Video) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.

Grace + Mercy. A Film of Haitians helping Haitians. from luis pena on Vimeo.

Confluence (Official Trailer) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.

Playlist 197 - Nov 15 2011

2011-11-16T03:48:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 197
Tues Nov 15 2011
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
https://rapidshare.com/files/3963518144/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_Nov_15_2011.m4a

Playlist
Richmond Fontaine feat. Deborah Kelly - Inventory
Bill Ryder-Jones - Leaning (Star of Sweden)
Crystal Stilts - Dark eyes
*d'load i'view with Crystal Stilts here
http://soundcloud.com/underground-of-happiness2/crystal-stilts-interview

Diagrams - Tall buildings (radio edit)
Peter Broderick - Old time (from the soundtrack of the film Confluence)
Nils Frahm - Keep
Roll the Dice - Calling all workers (playing ATP's Nightmare Before Christmas, Minehead, Dec 9-11)
Yann Tiersen - I'm gonna live anyhow (playing Jeff Mangum's ATP, Minehead, Mar 9-11 2012)
Liz Green - Midnight blues (playing Academy 2, Dublin, Nov 30)
Johnny "Guitar" Watson - Space guitar (The Roots of Trash & Garage)
Letting Up Despite Great Faults - Sophia in gold
Smith Westerns - End of the night
Barry McCormack - I remember Kent Station

*next week's show features music from Bill Ryder-Jones, Future Islands, Crystal Stilts, The Grunts and Jean-Claude Vannier among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Peter Broderick – Old Time (Official Music Video) from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.

Weird World announce Peaking Lights signing

2011-11-15T07:46:00.000-08:00

You might have come across the Domino imprint Weird World. Set up this year, they've already released a couple of impressive records by Smith Westerns and Washed Out. Now they've announced the signing of US west coast husband and wife duo Peaking Lights. Their 936 album gets its first full European release later this week (it came out previously on Not Not Fun in the US). And their new album is due out in the spring. From 936, here's the great All the sun that shines, which, with its cavernous reverb and deep sea bass, is the perfect soundtrack music for any number of nocturnal activities.

All The Sun That Shines by Peaking Lights

Aaran Coyes and Indra Dunis are their names - that's them in the very-un-rock-n-roll-but-so-very-rock-n-roll photo above, with their new baby Mikko. Aaron had this to say about the new album - I feel the need to reprint all of it.

“The songs that we've been working on have been very groovy and psyched out, foraging deeper into new rhythm techniques and territories, smoother bass lines w/ a heavy dub influence looking outward to private press boogie records, african & latin rhythms and tranced vibrations of the most killer all nite party you've never been to: less cocaine, more weed, a sustained orgasm, maintaining 100% creative control, late hot summer nights, come down chill room and low lit zone, lazer light show, smoke machines, being naked and watching the sun rise. This has been inspired by a long wild ride of a year with the birth of our son Mikko Lorenzo Dunis Coyes being at the helm of inspiration. We're working on moving in new directions, there's a lot of things we'll never give up in our passion for making killer chunes but the birth of our son has been an eye opening event to infinite possibilities...”

Brilliant. It sold me anyway. They've also dug into their record collections to put together this fascinating mixtape of global grooves and stuff. There's no setlist so your guess is as good as mine (or better) as to who the artists are but suffice to say it's pretty primal and essential-sounding. Infinite possibilities is right.

MIXXED-UP by Peaking Lights

Crystal Stilts Interview + gig at the Grand Social, Dublin, Nov 4 2011

2011-11-13T15:00:00.000-08:00

In a break with tradition, I've decided to put up an interview without broadcasting an excerpt on the show first. So here's Crystal Stilts speaking to me before they played in Dublin, just over a week ago.

The soundcheck was running late when I arrived at the venue (just as well as I was running late myself) – I learned that the band had missed their flight from London earlier in the day. I occupied myself downstairs with a beer and the crossword, while taking note of what passes for hipster in Dublin - it seems to be all about the manicured beards. Presently, the excellently moustached (but far from manicured) keyboard player Kyle found me at the bar and we repaired to the band’s dressing room, which was festooned with fake trophy antlers and period furniture. Kyle fell asleep, citing jet lag, but the rest of the band contributed fully to a discussion of…

…the cultural landscape of South Florida (where Brad & JB grew up - it's dominated by beaches and techno, apparently), recording their second album as a band unit as opposed to their first album as a series of overdubs, the challenge of making a living as a band in the internet age, decipherable vocals and dreamlike lyrics, the advantages of taking time to write new material, raising the musical bar for yourself and that “wild mercury sound” (the Irish presidential election and Alec Baldwin meets the Occupy Wall St protesters also featured but unfortunately didn’t make it on to tape – you’ll have to take my word for the fact that those topics were also lively and entertaining).

Crystal Stilts Interview by underground of happiness2

(Apologies for the low levels on JB and Keegan, they were sitting at the opposite side of the room and circumstances didn't allow a roving mike.)

I must say I regretted not having more time to chew the fat with the band. JB, for example, despite coming across as very shy and soft-spoken, gave the distinct impression of being perfectly happy to be drawn out on the specifics of guitar sound and production, among other things.

The gig afterwards was tremendous - and all the better for being very eagerly anticipated. It was my first time in the Grand Social and grand is the word. Dark, compact and excellent sound (they also sell burgers in the smoking area/balcony, which is not a drawback). The Stilts hit their stride straightaway, channelling the pre-60's sounds of surf rock (if I'm not mistaken), Joe Meek and echo chambers. They also produced the aforementioned "wild mercury sound", a thrilling garage rock beast with the addition of a swirling, coruscating organ. I feel bad about singling any one thing out for special mention but the bass was particularly great, a brilliant fluid bounce to it. And the guitar swinging between a choppy attack, a la Stirling Morrison, and a chiming Roger McGuinn. That time spent recording the album as a band was NOT wasted. The standouts for me were Half a moon , Shake the shackles and the intoxicating song Dark eyes (the lead track on the new Radiant door EP on Sacred Bones) all impeccable, urgent, underground pop classics. Big up to Harmonic and Skinny Wolves for putting the gig on.

A word about the opening band, Girls Names from Belfast. They tended to put one in mind of similarly pre-60's sounds, with wonderful lasso-like guitar runs reminiscient of The Shadows (via Johnny Marr and the C86 sound, mind you). They had a nice metronomic bass and impressive no-nonsense drumming with little need of cymbals. They also managed to sound like a speeded-up Orange Juice in places, which is a great thing.

Crystal Stilts - Dark Eyes by sacredbones

Playlist 196 - Nov 8 2011

2011-11-09T07:13:00.000-08:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 196
Tues Nov 8 2011
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
https://rapidshare.com/files/1733169933/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_Nov_8_2011.m4a

Playlist
Patrick Cleandenim - Crazy in the night
Wild Flag - Romance (playing ATP's Nightmare Before Christmas curated by Battles/Caribou/Les Savy Fav, Minehead, Dec 9-11)
Odonis Odonis - Blood feast
The Scaramanga Six - Trouble
Field Music - (I keep thinking about) A new thing (playing KOKO Theatre, London, Nov 30, Memphis Industries 13th Birthday Party, w/The Go! Team, Dutch Uncles & Colourmusic)
*d'load i'view with Field Music from Sept 2010 here
http://soundcloud.com/underground-of-happiness/field-music-interview

Other Lives - Old statues
Walls - Into our midst (playing Cyprus Avenue, Cork, Nov 17, w/ The Field)
A Lazarus Soul - Border. Spaces. Order. Faces (Colin J Morris remix)
Barry McCormack - The ghosts of Pigtown
Penny & the Quarters - You and me (from the soundtrack of the film Blue Valentine)
Rozi Plain - See my boat
The Beach Boys - Heroes and villains
Jean-Claude Vannier - Le ballet des accoucheuses (Finders Keepers)
Mickey Moonlight - Interplanetary music

*next week's show features music from Bill Ryder-Jones, Richmond Fontaine, Nils Frahm, Peter Broderick, Crystal Stilts and Diagrams among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Random Tuesday Reviews

2011-11-08T08:30:00.000-08:00

Yann Tiersen – I’m gonna live anyhow (Mute, from the album Skyline)
Welcome to a world where circus music meets pop, featuring an unruly arrangement made up of electronic tambourines, mouth trumpets, falsetto choirs, no-nonsense gorgeous melodies and the winningest refrain.

Gruff Rhys feat. El Perro del Mar – Space dust #2 (Turnstile, single)
Irresistible duet between the Super Furry Animals’ frontman and the Swedish singer. Hints of Tropicalia in the brushed samba beat, as well as the gloriously over the top lyrics recounting love at a conference – “When I saw you at the seminar/Raindrops and fireworks flow/When I saw you at the seminar/Active volcanoes aglow”. Superb.
*The single is backed by Whale trail, which comes accompanied with aye-Phone app features. Anybody know the Welsh for bonkers?

Crystal Stilts – Dark eyes (Sacred Bones, from the Radiant door EP)
Knockout opening tune from the New York band’s new EP, which splits itself (as if unable to choose) between garage rock and sunshine pop. A beautiful swirling organ, a handclap-assisted drumbeat, echo-chamber vocals and a liquid bass are just some of its treasures.

Crystal Stilts - Dark Eyes by sacredbones

Mickey Moonlight – Interplanetary music (Ed Banger Records/Because Music, from the album Mickey Moonlight and the Time Axis Manipulation Corporation)
Winning cover of the Sun Ra tune, combining global percussion, electronic squiggles and a “sick” saxophone solo. It all sounds quite Tom Tom Club and I’m not complaining about that.

Barry McCormack – Small mercies (Hag’s Head)

2011-11-03T08:17:00.000-07:00

If you’re of a certain age, you’ll remember Jubilee Allstars, a Dublin band from around the turn of the last century who had some great, downbeat alt country tunes and flirted with (major) record label success. Barry McCormack was the singer and main writer in that band and went on to record and perform solo when the Allstars split. (I remember meeting Barry about ten years ago in Nancy Spain’s – that used to be a live music venue in Cork, kids – supporting The Pernice Brothers; he was a regular visitor to the city on such support slots around that time). This is his fourth solo album but his first to be recorded with a full backing band. I’m sorry to say I’ve heard none of the other three, but I’m glad this one found me.

The first thing to mention is the lyric sheet, because this is an album you should read as well as hear. The lyrics are printed in full, they are lengthy and they read like a series of dirty realist short stories or prose poems. On first glance, the songs seem to sit on the introspective, gloomy end of the mood spectrum (titles like Hard times (Drunk at the kitchen door), Hard is the road and Bad enough support that impression, in fairness). But let them soak through fully and their earthy, black humour comes to the fore. Check out the rock ‘n roll turn of phrase to this genius opening of The dogs on the street –

”Paul was in the office up to his arse in P45’s
The bosses roamed the halls, they’d taken out the knives
Some of us were worried, some were running for their lives
Paul had got the shingles
I was coming out in hives”

As well as being marvellously entertaining, those lines tell a lot. I’ll hazard a guess that this is the first Irish album to address or describe the cultural or emotional landscape of the country in the aftermath of the recent political chicanery and financial collapse. Just not in a David McWilliams kind of way. The character of the title track opener ponders the descent of his fortunes, while noticing that the pawnbrokers had packed up during the boom times. All around, there are dole queues, ghost estates, disappointment, thwarted love affairs and people drowning their sorrows.

”And the dogs on the street know
Every gouger in Christendom knows
When the game is up, when the tide is going out”

In the end though, there’s a moral to be had in a vivid, whiskey-soaked dream prompted by a trip to Cork (I remember Kent Station), featuring the looming presence of Father Mathew, The Apostle of Temperance.

”Amen the spirit
The burdened soul
That takes the beatings
But refuses to stay down”

That theme of the indomitable spirit is a regular refrain on the album. Which leads us to one of its highpoints. The Ghosts of Pigtown is a raucous, Poguesian barroom singalong, an end-of-the-world Dublin zombie movie in technicolour as if written by Pat McCabe, with the smell of piss, lust and desperation on the streets. There is a strange kind of redemption for the narrator by the end though, in the shape of the realisation that he’s not alone in having a “mortal fear of waking up alone”. Small mercies indeed. The musical setting is an incongruously jaunty waltz with piano and massed backing vocals. It would also tend to put one in mind of Bob Dylan a little - a kind of muted, mini-epic version of Desolation Row.

Throughout the album, the musical backing is subtle, the central character of McCormack’s voice given its rightful place centre stage, full of wonderful street inflections and rhythmic colloquialisms, with just the odd sparing and sympathetic keyboard from John Hegarty, or sombre guitar solo by Shane McGrath. And with Stephen Shannon at the desk and Stephen Quinn on mastering duties, the sounds are superbly rendered on to record. This album is a poetic and moving document of Ireland in 2011. It is also a superb folk record about love and loss, in possession of a rock ‘n roll heart, and that is more important to my mind.

Barry McCormack - Small Mercies by Barry McCormack

Jean-Claude Vannier - Legend

2011-11-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

We've spoken about Serge Gainsbourg in these pages before. His Histoire de Melody Nelson album from 1971 is one of the great concept albums, in fact albums full stop. Which you might not guess to read this description.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/histoire-de-melody-nelson-r288302

You don't need to speak a word of French to understand Histoire de Melody Nelson - one needs only to look at the front cover (with its nearly pornographic portrait of a half-naked nymphet clutching a rag doll) or hear the lechery virtually dripping from Serge Gainsbourg's sleazily seductive voice to realize that this is the record your mother always warned you about, a masterpiece of perversion and corruption. A concept record exploring the story of - and Gainsbourg's lust for - the titular teen heroine, Histoire de Melody Nelson is arguably his most coherent and perfectly realized studio album, with the lush arrangements which characterize the majority of his work often mixed here with funky rhythm lines which underscore the musky allure of the music. Perhaps best described as a dirty old bastard's attempt to make his own R&B love-man's record along the lines of a Let's Get It On (itself still two years away from release), it's by turns fascinating and repellent, hilarious and grim, but never dull - which, in Gainsbourg's world, would be the ultimate (and quite possibly the only) sin.

Apart from the lapse into "Gainsbourg the lech" cliché", there's one major ommission in that. It makes no mention of the album's arranger and co-writer, Jean-Claude Vannier, who has by now become a legendary figure in French pop history. A new album of (almost all) previously unreleased material on Finders Keepers Records is as good a time as any to dig out some of his other music (we also played a track on the show this week).

Before we get to the new release, we need to mention an earlier Finders Keepers gem, Vannier's "imaginary soundtrack" from 1972, L'enfant assassin des mouches (The child fly-killer). With sleevenotes/plot written by Serge Gainsbourg, the album is an obvious companion to Melody Nelson. Without further ado, here are a few tracks from it.

Some distinct Morricone-style shapes on the vocals on this number, albeit in an incongruous funk-rock setting.

Serge's notes on that last one -

As the child approaches, the king's guards take up a warrior's stance, then move aside revealing the king of the flies playing billiards.

As you can see, you're in the wrong place if you're looking for a linear plot. With percussion, horn and string sections, a children's choir and everything including the kitchen sink (piano, flute, bombarde, among others) played by Vannier himself, aswell as copious field recordings, and of course JCV's incomparable arrangements, it's a surreal pop masterpiece. By the way, Andy Votel, of Finders Keepers, contributes four pages of excellent and detailed background on the man's career to the sleevenotes - another reason to get your hands on an original copy of this.

And so to Electro-Rapide: Experimental pop instrumentals from Jean-Claude Vannier's vintage vaults, to give it its full title. You'll find some audio excerpts on the Finder Keepers link above, but here's the one Youtube clip I've been able to find, taken from the album.

That's some of the most brilliant use of marimba (or is it vibes) you'll ever hear. Vannier's own sleevenotes are illuminating throughout, but particularly fascinating in this case, including his mention of learning his trade, playing hotel piano in Algeria as an 18-year old, and the reason for the track title. The album features tribal percussion, children's tv music, library music, jazz and orchestral stylings, among other things, recorded mostly with his regular "Wrecking Crew" of crack musicians between 1968 and 1976. Essential is a word that's bandied around a lot when it comes to music, but this album truly is.

We could go on of course - SG & JCV's other soundtrack collaborations, JCV's production of Jane Birkin's first album, his work with Brigitte Fontaine and other French vocalists - but that's for another day.

Playlist 195 - Nov 1 2011

2011-11-02T03:37:00.000-07:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 195
Tues Nov 1 2011
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
https://rapidshare.com/files/904457803/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_Nov_1_2011.m4a

Playlist
Patrick Kelleher & His Cold Dead Hands - Too many harsh words
Metronomy - Everything goes my way
Crystal Stilts - Silver sun (playing Grand Social, Dublin, Nov 4)
St Vincent - Cruel (playing Button Factory, Dublin, Nov 13)
(The) Caseworker - National runner
The Go! Team - Rolling blackouts (playing KOKO Theatre, London, Nov 30, Memphis Industries 13th Birthday Party)
Apparat - Song of Los (playing Sala Apolo, Barcelona, Dec 9)
Simian Ghost - Free agent
Mint Julep - Aviary
Tune-Yards - You yes you (playing Button Factory, Dublin, Feb 12 2012)
Jean-Claude Vannier - L'ours pareusseux 1969 (Finders Keepers)
The Chakras - Build me a swan
Dark Captain - Different and easier
Dum Dum Girls - Bedroom eyes
Justice - Audio, video, disco

*next week's show features music from Walls, The Beach Boys, Penny & the Quarters, Field Music and A Lazarus Soul among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Nat King Cole - Nature boy

2011-10-28T05:02:00.000-07:00

We mentioned an album last month, the great Eden's Island by Eden Ahbez, which has been re-issued on Trunk Records. First of all, you need to hear that. But secondly, it made me think again about another Eden Ahbez song, Nature boy, which was made famous by Nat King Cole. Here's some footage of the Nat trio doing a version, very close to the recorded one. The date isn't given but I'd guess it's around 1948 or so, when the song was a hit.

That's one of the high water marks in pop music history, hands down. I went through a period, some years ago, of being quite obsessed with the tune, but I haven't listened to it in too long (my CD copy went astray). It's great to hear it again. Plus Nat could play one mean piano, in fairness.

Apparat – The devil’s walk (Mute)

2011-10-27T03:33:00.000-07:00

This is a beguiling album of emotional songs from the Berliner, featuring lyrics with a broad romantic (in the Keats and Shelley sense – in fact the album title is apparently a nod to a Shelley poem from 1812, how cool) sweep.

Let the bed sheet soak up my tears
And watch the only way out disappear
Don’t tell me why
Kiss me goodbye

But while the words wonder and brood in melancholy, almost metaphysical fashion, the surging, fizzing soundtrack reaches for the sky.

The stall is set out from the beginning, in the shape of the celestial choir and circling, Reichian synths of opener Sweet unrest. You’ll probably already have heard the sublime single Song of Los, which manages to combine a semi-operatic vocal with a twitchy two-step (it reminds me of CocoRosie in a way), to make a tune of soaring emotional power. That title refers to the genesis of the album during a break from touring in Mexico in 2010, and there is a kind of sun-bleached, morning-after quality to a lot of the music here. For example, the beautiful, pulsing, shoegaze build of Black water and the widescreen, Sigur Ros-ish hymn to lost youth Escape.

One of my favourite moments on the album is The soft voices die, which draws on chamber pop using the warmth of a vibraphone and the tug of strings, above a whirring electronic sample – you can see why Thom Yorke might be a fan. The second half of the album brings more of the dancefloor to bear, for example the rushing, bleeping Ash/Black veil. There’s also a lovely vocal cameo on the lullaby Goodbye by Anja Plaschg of Soap & Skin, but it’s Sascha Ring’s vulnerable lead vocal that holds the album together. It’s open and engaging, a voice that could not be more accessible, more pop and less underground, despite his techno beginnings. So much so that it could sit comfortably among any of today’s chart heroes. That’s not a put-down – it’s high praise from me. In fact, it’s a triumph. To wrap a feature which has so much of the mainstream about it, in layers of inventive, intriguing textures and rhythms, is one of the achievements of the year. It’s a wonderful thing.

Dark Captain – Dead legs and alibis (LoAF)

2011-10-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

Second album from the London 5-piece (who used to be Dark Captain Light Captain in the days of their wonderful debut Miracle Kicker), full of propulsive rhythms and hushed vocal harmonies. Where their debut album was bound to make you think of an imaginary Elliot Smith soundtrack to The Wicker Man (folk with a twist, we’re saying), the beats are more prominent this time around.

We’ve already spoken about the first single Submarines, a salutary tale built around a powerful hi-hat and snare two-step backbeat and a matrix of acoustic guitars – it also features a meltingly gorgeous melody. One of the most noticeable new threads this time is some lovely high-tone bass work (for example, 3 years to go – am I the only one who thinks it sounds like a slowed-down baggy beat, a la Ride? In fact, the shuffling Ex detective has a hint of this too, come to think of it…I’m all in favour by the way – and Different and easier, which comes on like a folky Stereolab, complete with an intriguing brass wash). In other highlights, Long distance driver begins by putting a plucked acoustic guitar pattern and wind chimes to beautiful, shimmering effect, until the loosest and grooviest floor tom gets the motor running, and another great brass drone fills out the landscape. As the album goes on, an undercurrent of krautrock comes pleasingly into view - 80000 reasons has an air of it, although maybe more of a leisurely secondary road than a relentless autobahn. Strange journeys home even throws an element of breakbeat into the mix, although in the subtlest possible way and without interfering with another immaculate melody. Even if the band wanted to completely discard the folk tag (I personally doubt they do), they’d find it hard while still producing haunting tunes like Fade. Whatever the materials or genre debates, what Dark Captain have produced here is a brilliantly crafted and hook-laden set of slightly melancholy but still classically uplifting pop songs. And we love that.

Playlist 194 - Oct 25 2011

2011-10-26T04:15:00.000-07:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 194
Tues Oct 25 2011
11.00am-12.00pm
(repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm)
UCC 98.3FM
listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/ccr
*listen back to this show here
https://rapidshare.com/files/2775842683/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_Oct_25_2011.m4a

Playlist
Roll the Dice - Calling all workers (playing Corsica Studios, London, Nov 30)
Dutch Uncles - Fragrant (playing Academy 2, Dublin, Nov 18)
Colourmusic - Tog (playing Crawdaddy, Dublin, Nov 26)
Seun Kuti & Egypt 80 - Rise
Battles feat. Gary Numan - My machines (playing Button Factory, Dublin, Nov 19)
Suuns - Up past the nursery (playing Cyprus Avenue, Cork, Nov 15)
Barry McCormack - The secrets of the Buckfast Monks (playing Whelan's, Dublin, Oct 28, w/ Lisa O'Neill & Bunoscionn)
Nils Frahm - Snippet (playing Café Oto, London, Nov 12)
Low Bias - White field
Elephant - Assembly
Darren Hayman - The ship's piano
Agnes Obel - On powdered ground (playing Triskel Christchurch, Cork, Dec 11)

*next week's show features music from Justice, Other Lives, Tune-Yards, St Vincent, The Go! Team, Crystal Stilts & Jean-Claude Vannier among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Nils Frahm – Felt (Erased Tapes)

2011-10-21T04:56:00.000-07:00

Another set of sublime neo-classical instrumentals from the Berlin resident, which shed new light on the full dynamic range of the piano. By close-miking the instrument from the inside, and playing the keys softly (it’s practically his signature style), Frahm exposes an unexpected set of sounds. Actually, the album almost qualifies as a field recording where the field is the inside of a piano, and the listener is surrounded by the sounds of the room fed through its natural reverb and decay, at least as much as the notes coming from the keys. The resulting arrangements feature microscopic rumbles and creaks and clicks as a kind of supporting orchestra arrived from the wings, and headphones are recommended/essential to get the full benefit.

The title apparently derives from Frahm’s need to quieten the piano notes to show consideration for his neighbours during his nocturnal practice sessions. To achieve this effect, he layered thick felt in front of the piano strings. At times though (for example, Old thought, More and Kind), the close-up attack of the hammers - that relentless, wooden, rhythmical tapping - calls to mind a miniature marching army, or the undeniable inner workings of a clock. It’s an intriguing contradiction - this undercurrent of busy, frantic activity, while stately melodies glide past above. You could read it as a metaphor for the pounding, emotional heart beneath a straight face. (With its “middle of the night” backstory and meditative atmosphere, you could also consider it a companion piece to labelmate Peter Broderick’s recent soundtrack collection Music for Confluence.) And this is very emotional music. As Frahm notes in the press release, a description of his reaction to the music he plays -

My heart opens and I wonder what exactly it is that makes me feel so happy.

You’ll find last year’s single, the absolutely gorgeous Unter (with the addition of an eerie, whistled outro). Other instruments make cameo appearances - twinkling glockenspiel and sparing synths float in and out. There is also the unmistakeable sound of recordings made onto tape – confirmed by the beautiful accompanying studio portraits – allowing a broad audio field. This is a reflective album but it has an endearing openness, and it’s still perfectly capable of making you hum along with its infectious melodies. Another triumph for neo-classical pop music.

*On further listening, I’d have to add that the wonderfully light-fingered Old thought has a particular cinematic quality - no doubt helped by the widescreen, recorded-to-tape ambience. Its stalking, suspenseful piano pattern also shows that neo-classical pop music has more than one string to its bow, mood-wise.

(The) Caseworker Interview

2011-10-20T04:40:00.000-07:00

We had a couple of excerpts on the show this week of an interview with Conor Devlin of dream-pop trio (The) Caseworker. (Notice I haven't specified where they're from, because it's hard to say exactly, being that each member is resident in a different part of the world. You could argue their spiritual home is the U.S. west coast, where at least two of the band were based for a good number of years, due to a certain burnished guitar sound, although they are from Dublin originally.) You can listen to the whole interview now here, in which Conor talks about...

...listening to Radio Luxembourg on Tuesdays as a child, older sisters with Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd records, travel, Pro Tools, Ethiopian athlete Miruts Yifter, the process of making music together/apart in the internet age, the love of 7-inch vinyl, The Undertones, random brackets, ska, late Byrds, a West Coast Sound, and more.

It's interesting, at a time when Irish people are leaving the motherland in their enforced droves, to hear of a band that developed through chosen emigration from Ireland, at a time of relative prosperity in the mid-1990's. After an initial slowcore phase, they have now released four albums as (The) Caseworker, including the new album Letters from the coast on Hidden Shoal. That's quite the antithesis of the X-Factor, or even meat-and-potatoes indie band, arc. It does the heart good to see that kind of conviction and stamina - not to mention pop music of a mature, sinewy character - out in the world. And of course, we're always partial to a bit of dream-pop around here, especially of this quality.

New Giant Sand track on Luz de Vida compilation album

2011-10-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

We're not all that fussed about keeping up with trends, here around the UOH chalet. However, we tend to get excited when new Giant Sand material is announced. Have a listen to this, we played it on the show this week.

Giant Sand "Recovery Mission (Radio Edit)" by FortLowellRecords

Beautiful or what? I particularly like those lines -

They found water on Mars, not much but surely substantial
About a pound of frozen tears' worth, as such it's purely circumstantial

Wry and poignant would be words. And that children's chorus later on is perfectly judged. It turns out that the tune is Howe Gelb's response to a certain shooting in Tucson, Arizona earlier this year. You'll have heard about it. Here are all the details, quoted from the Fort Lowell Records website, the label on which the compilation appears. (By the way, you'll find eight other tracks from the album streaming on that link - at first listen, they sound really good. In fact, I could listen to that Howe Gelb song Sno angel spiral all day. And so can you here, a live version from 2008.)

Luz de Vida is a compilation album of music from artists both in Tucson and affiliated with Tucson. All proceeds from the sale of Luz de Vida will go to the Tucson Together Fund, the only officially sanctioned fund established to assist victims, families, and witnesses of the January 8th tragedy.

Luz de Vida – Spanish for Light of Life – is an expression of community, love, healing, grace and hope, a positive response from Tucson musicians and national artists who have a special bond with Tucson. Luz de Vida will be available in two formats: as a 37-track digital album and a special limited-edition 12-song vinyl release, with exclusively Tucson bands.

Included are songs written as a direct response, like Giant Sand’s “Recovery Mission,” in which the elder ambassador of desert rock Howe Gelb sings of the city’s tears and “collective heart.” The compilation also features “The Oasis” from the late, legendary blues guitarist Rainer.

Calexico, whose longtime friendship with Gabrielle Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly has resulted in the band’s music being played aboard the International Space Station, contributes the unreleased “Absent Afternoon.” Songs from Calexico collaborators Salvador Duran and Mariachi Luz de Luna reflect the city’s Hispanic tradition.

Tucson friends Robyn Hitchcock, John Vanderslice, Spoon, Neko Case, Meat Puppets, Jimmy Eat World, Ozomatli, Visqueen’s Rachel Flotard & Jon Rauhouse, Mark Growden and Chuck Prophet all contribute songs.

Fort Lowell Records artists Tracy Shedd and Dead Western Plains recorded exclusive follow-ups to their acclaimed 7inch records.

On the heels of their stunning 2011 debut album, Tucson’s Lenguas Largas returns with a special new track. The upstart R&B Kiss & The Tells make their recorded debut on Luz de Vida. Indie rockers Holy Rolling Empire and La Cerca explore new directions. And exclusive to the 12inch vinyl is a live recording of Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” from Chango Malo.

Luz de Vida is compiled by Music Against Violence, a coalition of Tucson writers, recording engineers, and venue operators.

“Music is the thread that keeps life going when we have no where else to go and feel like our world has no direction. Here in this compilation of local musicians and artists from Tucson you feel the sense of community and respect that we all share for one another here and those affected by the events that took our town and country by surprise. Luz de Vida brings a much needed warmth and glow into the heart of Arizona and Sonora.”
— Joey Burns, Calexico

All very worthy and interesting, says you. They had us at the words "New Giant Sand".

Playlist 193 - Oct 18 2011

2011-10-19T08:37:00.000-07:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 193
Tues Oct 18 2011
11.00am-12.00pm
(repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm)
UCC 98.3FM
listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/ccr
*listen back to this show here
https://rapidshare.com/files/1051330603/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_18-10-2011.m4a

Playlist
Wooden Shjips - Lazy bones
Amiina - Asinn (playing Opera House, Cork, Oct 30)
Portishead - Chase the tear (Amnesty International)
Giant Sand - Recovery mission (Tucson Together Fund)
Apparat - Song of Los (playing KOKO Theatre, London, Oct 20)
Atlas Sound - Lightworks

(The) Caseworker Interview
Interview Excerpt 1
(The) Caseworker - National runner
Interview Excerpt 2
(The) Caseworker - The slow track
*d'load the full interview here
http://conorot.podomatic.com/entry/2011-10-17T08_17_50-07_00

Yann Tiersen - I'm gonna live anyhow (playing Jeff Mangum's ATP, Minehead, re-scheduled to Mar 9-11 2012)
Tarwater - Photographed
Patterns - Induction

*next week's show features music from Roll the Dice, Nils Frahm, Battles, Barry McCormack & Low Bias among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Tune-Yards cover Yoko at Airwaves

2011-10-14T11:43:00.000-07:00

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.)

Playlist 192 - Oct 11 2011

2011-10-12T08:06:00.000-07:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 192
Tues Oct 11 2011
11.00am-12.00pm
(repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm)
UCC 98.3FM
listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/ccr
*listen back to this show here
https://rapidshare.com/files/2948597877/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_11-10-2011.m4a

Playlist
Josh T. Pearson - Sorry with a song (playing Barbican Theatre, London, Nov 26, w/ guests)
Left with Pictures - River Avon (playing Union Chapel, London, Dec 10, daytime gig)
A Winged Victory for the Sullen - Requiem for the Static King, Part One
Cymbals Eat Guitars - Wavelengths
Deus - Constant now (playing Olympia Theatre, Dublin, Oct 12)
Dark Captain - Right way round (playing Union Chapel, London, Nov 26, daytime gig)
Liz Green - Hey Joe
Bert Jansch - The black swan
Plaid - Missing (playing Cyprus Avenue, Cork, Oct 16)
The Field - Then it's white (playing Cyprus Avenue, Cork, Nov 17, w/ Walls)
Fenster - White to red

*next week's show features music from Wooden Shjips, Patterns, Yann Tiersen, Portishead, Atlas Sound among others, as well as an interview with Conor from (The) Caseworker

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Bert Jansch RIP

Dark Captain acoustic version

2011-10-10T10:23:00.000-07:00

And lastly for today, a song that's already much loved around these parts, but a different version. We were on about Submarines, the first single off the new album by Dark Captain, back in August. Here's some film of four of them (I think they can reach seven, if the weather's good) performing an acoustic version of the song at the Lo & Behold gallery in London. It ups the ante on the original in terms of intimate hushed vocals and cunningly replaces the guitar line with a flute. That may not be everyone's cup of tea but I must say it charms the pants off me.

Dark Captain - Submarines (Acoustic at Lo & Behold) from Lo+LOAF TV on Vimeo.

And for comparison, the superb original. We'll be talking more about the album later in the month.

Portishead hook up with Amnesty International

2011-10-10T09:54:00.000-07:00

Portishead's Chase the tear gets a 12" vinyl release through XL on November 14th, all proceeds going to Amnesty International. It's a fantastic blast of krautrock with Beth Gibbons' signature downbeat vocal. There's also a version (re-imagining, officially, with more of an electro feel) by Toronto's Doldrums, which moves things from the autobahn to the racetrack - it's also worth your time. The label actually had 200 signed copies of this at the Independent Label Market in Brooklyn over the weekend just gone - I'm assuming they are now gone. So you'll have to make do with this lovely B&W video.

My Brightest Diamond - Take Away Shows

2011-10-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

As an adjunct to last week's mention of the new My Brightest Diamond album, some great new Take Away Shows of her (Shara Worden) with some friends have just been released by the wonderful La Blogotheque. This first film features her solo with guitar sitting at the bar of the Hotel MichelBerger in Berlin (sounds good so far, says you) singing a song she wrote for her son (if my French isn't mistaken). Apart from being achingly beautiful, it also shows the meaning of "inhabiting" a song, as opposed to simply singing it. Those tears aren't crocodile, girls.

My Brightest Diamond | I Have Never Loved Someone | A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

This next one switches to New York (in the park, near water) and features Shara Worden and the yMusic Ensemble, who play extensively on the new album. There are actually two pieces of music here - first a song (she plays an autoharp and suppresses a smile, as if the director was trying to make her laugh), second an intriguing chamber pop instrumental from yMusic (somehow combines the busy, playful atmosphere of Michael Nyman's Peter Greenaway soundtracks, with the poise of Sufjan Stevens). And great to see and hear a baritone sax (I think that's what it is) at work up close.

My Brightest Diamond & yMusic | A Take Away Show | Part 01 from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

And finally, also in the park, Shara Worden dons a moon-faced mask and writes a note on some very fancy looking paper (vellum?), while yMusic do their thing and dancer Jessica Dessner (she of The National Dessners) interprets through body movement. The whole thing is fascinating, works brilliantly as pop music and, also, is thoroughly bonkers.

My Brightest Diamond, yMusic & Jessica Dessner | A Take Away Show | Part 02 from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

You'll find all three videos together on the original La Blogotheque link here -

http://www.blogotheque.net/2011/10/10/my-brightest-diamond-3/

My Brightest Diamond - All things will unwind (Asthmatic Kitty)

2011-10-05T08:22:00.000-07:00

Another notable release this month on Asthmatic Kitty is the new album by My Brightest Diamond, All things will unwind. We opened this week's show with a song from the album, Reaching through to the other side. It's an affecting, fluttering chamber-pop piece, all flutes and clarinets and bending violins, and of course Shara Worden's always engaging voice. It's really beautiful, as you can hear here.

Reaching Through to the Other Side by My Brightest Diamond

In the past, MBD was/were one of those artists I've admired from a distance, without getting up to my neck in. I might have to change that.

Here, Shara Worden describes the background to the visual and other concepts at play on the album, including the funky body-painting art design and superb synthetic hair sculpture. Personal ancestry and the finite nature of the cosmos also feature.

My Brightest Diamond - ALL THINGS WILL UNWIND: Visuals from Asthmatic Kitty on Vimeo.

And in this one, Shara explains her move from New York to Detroit and getting involved with flower-planting communities in her new home. There's also plenty of footage of the yMusic Ensemble (who feature prominently on All things will unwind) and Shara's fantastic ball-of-wool scarves. Fascinating character, Miss Worden.

My Brightest Diamond - ALL THINGS WILL UNWIND: Stories and Sounds from Asthmatic Kitty on Vimeo.

Playlist 191 - Oct 4 2011

2011-10-05T04:36:00.000-07:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 191
Tues Oct 4 2011
11.00am-12.00pm
(repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm)
UCC 98.3FM
listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/ccr
*listen back to this show here
https://rapidshare.com/files/1776308550/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_4-10-2011.m4a

Playlist
My Brightest Diamond - Reaching through to the other side
Julia Kent - Dear Mr Twombly (playing Cafe Oto, London, Oct 19)
Roll the Dice - Cause and effect
Scott Solter - The great cold
The Jezabels - Endless summer
Mint Julep - Days gone by
Dum DUm Girls - Bedroom eyes (playing The Factory, Manchester, Nov 13)
Paul Curreri - Juju (playing The Crane Lane Theatre, Cork, Oct 9+10)
Young Knives - Vision in rags
Adrian Crowley - These icy waters (playing Triskel Christchurch, Cork, Oct 6, w/ James Yorkston & Alisdair Roberts)
Alisdair Roberts - The daemon lover (playing Triskel Christchurch, Cork, Oct 6, w/ James Yorkston & Adrian Crowley)
Real Estate - Green aisles (playing The Garage, London, Oct 25, w/ Twin Sister)
Justice - Audio Video Disco Radio

*next week's show features music from Left with Pictures, Josh T. Pearson, The Field, Plaid and A Winged Victory for the Sullen among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Julianna Barwick - Matrimony Remixes (Asthmatic Kitty)

2011-10-04T08:06:00.000-07:00

Beautiful new release from Julianna Barwick, who is one of our favourite singers/artists around here. Her fantastic album The magic place came out earlier in the year, also on Asthmatic Kitty - this was the UOH verdict at the time.

Julianna Barwick - The magic place (Asthmatic Kitty)

From the opening strains of Envelop, with multiple wordless, heavily treated vocal parts creating texture as well as melody, you know you're in the presence of something special here. By the end of that track, as a distressed piano line gradually swamps the vocals, a haunting, heartrending mood has taken over from the initial bliss. The title track is a choral symphony which slowly disintegrates into a lone soprano. Cloak sounds for all the world like a line from a church hymn sampled and looped, until its layers gather a power not witnessed in any church I've ever been in. White flag creates the effect of standing at the mid-point of three competing choirs, which somehow manage to complement each other. You could quibble that a sameness sets in midway through the album which might have been broken by the use of more percussion or rhythm parts (as hinted at on Vow and Prizewinning). But that's like taking issue with Michelangelo's choice of colour tone on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And it would miss the point too, because Ms Barwick is composing a hymn of praise to the human voice, with the effect of strongly suggesting forces beyond the human domain. Solemn, moving and utterly transformative.

Mmm. The remixes in question are of the above-mentioned Vow and Prizewinning, the remixers Prince Rama, Alias Pail, Diplo & Lunice and labelmate Helado Negro - the two original tracks also appear. I'm not sure any of the remixes reveal anything more special than the originals, but any excuse to highlight this music. It's mindblowing, really, to use a word.

Matrimony Remixes by Julianna Barwick

Playlist 190 - Sept 27 2011

2011-09-28T02:45:00.000-07:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 190
Tues Sept 27 2011
11.00am-12.00pm
(repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm)
UCC 98.3FM
listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/ccr
*listen back to this show here
https://rapidshare.com/files/1491453982/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_27-9-2011.m4a

Playlist
Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons - You're a song (that I can't sing) (Mowest Compilation) (Munster Soul Clubnight, The Phoenix, Cork, Oct 29)
Toro y Moi - All alone
Dark Captain - 3 years to go (playing Hoxton Bar & Kitchen, London, Oct 5)
Peter Broderick - It wasn't a deer skull (from the soundtrack of the film Confluence)
North Sea Radio Orchestra - I a moon (playing The Komedia, Brighton, Oct 12, w/ William D. Drake)
William D. Drake - Wholly holey (playing The Komedia, Brighton, Oct 12, w/ North Sea Radio Orchestra)
The Phoenix Foundation - Bright grey
Cloud Control - Death cloud
Trailer Trash Tracys - Wish you were red
Future Islands - Balance
Breakbot - Fantasy
Downpilot - So I'll try
Gruff Rhys feat. El Perro del Mar - Space dust #2 (playing Academy, Dublin, Oct 3)
Botched Fairytale - All cylinders
Tim Kasher - Rabbit, run (playing The Workman's Club, Dublin, Nov 18, w/ Mariachi El Bronx)

*next week's show features music from Adrian Crowley, Paul Curreri, Mint Julep and Dum Dum Girls among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Eden Ahbez – Eden’s Island (Trunk Records)

2011-09-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

Another lost classic re-issued by the wonderful Jonny Trunk. This album was originally released in 1960 on Del-Fi Records and features one of life’s proto-hippies in the shape of Eden Ahbez (an assumed name, as you may have guessed, born Alexander Aberle in Brooklyn in 1908), a drifter, performer, student of Oriental mysticism, who moved west and reportedly lived outdoors with his family in Los Angeles, under the first L in the Hollywood sign. He was also a regular performer at the city’s coffeehouses in the 1940’s, mixing poetry with flute and bongo arrangements. And, most famously, he was responsible for the song Nature boy, that superb evocation of innocence abroad which was turned into a hit by Nat King Cole in 1947. All those elements are present on this album, along with a strong undercurrent of Central American rhythms which tends to bring Esquivel to mind (this is always welcome). Especially on songs like Full moon, a beautiful, sombre vibes arrangement with a spoken word paean to solitude and natural living. And the claves and flute rumba of Tradewind. Forget Rock the boat, the dance classic Mongoose could form the highpoint of any party, with more than a touch of calypso about it and a chorus like “Mongoose chase the snake away”. The everpresent chorus of female backing vocalists is another great feature of the album (check those “ooh yeah yeah, ooh yaw yaw’s” on Eden’s Cove). They’re calling this hippie exotica. I’m up with that.

*I've got mixed feelings about posting this (seeing as it's apparent the video was filmed against the man's wishes, basically), but this is still fascinating footage of Ahbez speaking a few years before he died.

Scott Solter – One river (Hidden Shoal)

2011-09-27T09:13:00.000-07:00

We mentioned last month the lead track from this album (first released in 2005 on Tell All Records), from the man who is one half of American experimental pop duo Boxharp. Its seven instrumental tracks run continuously, proceeding at glacial pace - turning, shifting, transforming in a slow, deliberate melt. Textures derive from guitar and synth smears, as well as tape manipulations and field recordings, producing a symphony of heart-tugging power. Overall, there is a pastoral rather than an industrial feel, with the humming and groaning and rumbling of the natural world being evoked. It would be wrong to single out one track over another – you need to hear this river in flow. Suffice to say, this is an ambient work of sublime beauty.

*As a post-script, Mark and Laura Solter have put together a wonderful piece of film to accompany the entire album. It's called Twins and Wives, it's a series of stately tableaux (of rural and nature scenes mostly) and you can watch it here.

Tune-Yards - Gangsta video

2011-09-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

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...

Dum Dum Girls - Bedroom eyes video

2011-09-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

Further to news about the new Dum Dum Girls album, Only in dreams, last month, we now have a new video for lead track Bedroom eyes, made by Tom Macon. It's a wonderful cascading kaleidoscope of multiple Girls, which very nicely mirrors the shimmering guitar sound and theme of sleep-deprived twilight zone paranoia. There's also a LOT of lipstick and that is always a good thing.

Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons

2011-09-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

Over the summer, in among the piles of great new music arriving, I became more than slightly obsessed with one song from 1972. It was contained on the great compilation Our lives are shaped by what we love: Motown's Mowest Story 1971-1973, brought out by the wonderful Light in the Attic label. The song in question is the first track on the album, You're a song (that I can't sing), by Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to track down a video or full listening link for it, but you will find a 30 second sample on the LITA website here (there's some other top class tunes on it too, from the likes of Odyssey, Sister Love and G.C. Cameron).

http://lightintheattic.net/releases/572-our-lives-are-shaped-by-what-we-love-motown-s-mowest-story-1971-73

As you'll see on that page, the label was the brainchild of Berry Gordy, the Motown boss, an idea to transfer the Detroit operation to the west coast, and launch a west-coast version - breezy, cosmic, psychedelic even - of Motown in the process. There's plenty more detail on the label background and catalogue in this article by Graeme Thomson in The Guardian a few months back.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/30/mowest-motown-california

But the song... It's an acoustic guitar and strings ballad, with a big, itchy bassline. It has a male harmony chorus line that predicts Philly soul, in all its orchestrated glory. And it has Frankie Valli's vulnerable falsetto, playing the part of wounded underdog to perfection.

You're a song that I can't sing
You're a word that I cna't say
You're a game that I can't play

It also has flutes and a "Wand'rin Star" harmonica. And the most winning chorus I've heard in years, incorporating a perfectly ingenious keychange. It seems to have found a point where doo wop, soul and male crooning can live in perfect harmony.

The more I listened to it, and marvelled at its deceptively simple structure, the more I realised it reminded me of this other west coast song from a few years before, sung by Glen Campbell.

That one was written by Brian Wilson of course and that's the Beach Boys taking care of the trademark backing vocals. The emphasis is a little different but the sentiment is similar. When I first heard that, I was deaf to all other music for several weeks. You're a song (that I can't sing) is having a similar effect now. Do yourself a favour and get hold of it. Light in the Attic are waiting for your call.

Roll the Dice – In dust (Leaf)

2011-09-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

This is a kind of concept album about life in the modern metropolis, with a soundtrack of machines at work, from the Swedish duo made up of Malcolm Pardon and Peder Mannerfelt. It’s one of the most evocative and strangely groovy collections you’ll come across. Favouring analogue synths over digital, they’ve managed to capture the rhythmic, repetitive, grinding, but also messy, untidy, unpredictable character of urban life. Or, if you prefer, they’ve made an intriguingly semi-pop series of electronic instrumentals, that also manage to have some jazz improv and Krautrock in them.

The elements range from the buzz of static to broad, sweeping synths and dubby bass pads, stop-start industrial clanks and the swoop, suck and throb of circuitry in general (one track is actually called The suck), all combining in a sort of machine swing dance class of the (near) future. However, one of the most appealing features of the album is its terrific, busy, spidery piano riffs (used to particularly memorable effect on Way out and See you Monday). These take on the role of a pulse, allowing the synths to take melody, in wonderful kosmische style, and bass, to some of the farther reaches of dub. It’s like being taken on an alternative tour of a city, through factories, workshops, past conveyor belts, typing pools, the hum of traffic and the clatter of man-machine interactions vying for your attention at every corner. It’s warm and thrilling, with a hint of danger.

Calling All Workers by Roll the Dice

The intention, Mannerfelt explains, was to create something “a little unsettling and claustrophobic”, and also “overwhelming”. It’s certainly all that but still, the redemptive moments stand out for me. The four-note descending pop perfection of Way out; the cinematic grandeur of Maelstrom; the beautiful, shifting waves of See you Monday; the dignity amidst the grime of Cause and effect; the intoxicating throb of Calling all workers, gradually subsiding under a plaintiff melody.

Mannerfelt has spent time as a member of Fever Ray, and Pardon has composed film and tv soundtracks. This album has a character all of its own though. In the end, it’s dramatic pop music with a distinctly underground edge, and a rounded and completely engaging narrative woven through it. A towering, 21st century piece of work.

Roll The Dice - Calling All Workers from Roll The Dice on Vimeo.

Playlist 189 - Sept 20 2011

2011-09-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

The Underground of Happiness
uplifting pop music of every creed

www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness

Playlist 189
Tues Sept 20 2011
11.00am-12.00pm
(repeated on Tuesdays 8.30pm)
UCC 98.3FM
listen live on the web at www.ucc.ie/ccr
*listen back to this show here
https://rapidshare.com/files/4208677283/The_Underground_Of_Happiness_20-9-2011.m4a

Playlist
Connan Mockasin - Faking jazz together (extended version) (playing Deaf Institute, Manchester, Sept 26)
Liz Green - Bei mir bist du schoen (playing Kings Place, London, Nov 25)
Memoryhouse - Modern normal
Eden Ahbez - Full moon (Trunk Records)
Dutch Uncles - The ink (playing Academy 2, Dublin, Nov 18)
(The) Caseworker - The slow track
Larsen feat. little Annie - It was a very good year (playing Cafe Oto, London, Oct 8, w/ Trumpets of Death)
Driver Drive Faster - They may talk
Trumpets of Death - The press gang (playing Cafe Oto, London, Oct 8, w/ Larsen)
Yann Tiersen - Monuments (playing Jeff Mangum's ATP, Minehead, Dec 2-4)
Roll the Dice - See you Monday
Dent May - Fun
Rachael Dadd - Anchoring (playing The Bicycle Shop, Norwich, Oct 23)

*next week's show features music from Peter Broderick, Future Islands, North Sea Radio Orchestra, William D. Drake and Toro y Moi among others

e-mail the show on radio@ucc.ie
or text +353 (0)86-7839800
please mark messages “uoh”

Conor O'Toole,
c/o UCC 98.3FM,
Áras na Mac Léinn,
Student Centre,
University College Cork,
Cork,
Ireland.

Peter Broderick – Music for Confluence (Erased Tapes)

2011-09-20T14:15:00.000-07:00

A new soundtrack work by the now Berlin resident (following last year's Congregation and 2009's Falling from trees dance soundtracks, both also on Erased Tapes), this time to a film documentary by Jennifer Anderson and Vernon Lott about a cluster of unsolved cases of missing and murdered young girls in Idaho around 1980, and the main suspect that links the cases. With subject matter like that, and track titles like She just quit coming to school, Until the person is apprehended and Circumstantial evidence, you might expect something dour, serious, hopeless. Far from it. Broderick manages to maintain a delicacy and lightness of touch about the arrangements, without sacrificing a certain ominous quality in keeping with the subject matter. Broderick’s main instruments (if it’s fair to call them that, he seems to play everything, including vibes and steel drums on stage with Efterklang in Cork last July), piano and violin, are most prominent, to plaintiff and moving effect. Suspenseful brushed violins combine brilliantly with background swells and rumbles on Some fisherman on the Snake River. For contrast, The person of interest features layers of strident violins and low end (almost tympani-style) piano notes, to create a plot-advancing, police procedural feel - the one track that deviates from the album’s prevailing mood of beautifully unhinged melancholia. The stand-out moment for me is the otherworldly It wasn’t a deer skull, a sublimely unsettling major-minor shift of winsome violin over brooding ambient and choral backdrops – there’s also a pleasing touch of Jack Nietzsche’s One flew over the cuckoo’s nest score about it. (Its piano theme also previews in sparse form on We enjoyed life together.) Vocals are used only very sparingly - on the opening track In the valley itself (female, wordless) and the closing Old time (the film’s credit music), a lilting, nostalgic tune of plucked acoustic guitar and violin, sounding very much like an out-take from his 2008 album Home. In the accompanying press release, Peter says –

“I set out to create some textural soundscapes which could complement the building tension of the story without being too intrusive or suggestive. Days and nights, snowed in and experimenting with layers and layers of whichever instruments I had around, finding a murky atmosphere that fit with the uneasy feeling which the film gave to me.”

Job done, I’d say. (Is a 24-year old too old to be called a wunderkind?) Another poignant and intriguing collection to add to this man’s already awesome body of work. And another triumph for Erased Tapes, a bona fide treasure of a label.

Peter Broderick - Music For Confluence (album teaser) by erasedtapes

*The press release also contains a charming backstory to the album’s recording, featuring Peter Broderick falling on his feet in spectacular fashion, as he contemplates a move to Berlin in November 2010. He managed to rent an apartment there in a building where the landlord wanted only musicians living (sounds like the land of make believe to me), above a piano shop which Peter had the run of outside of business hours. In this abandoned musicians’ playground, Music for Confluence was conceived and largely recorded. You couldn’t make it up, really.

Efterklang Interview

2011-09-16T03:27:00.000-07:00

We had a few extracts from the interview with Casper Clausen, the singer from Efterklang, on the show this week. The full interview is available here.

Topics of conversation include Vincent Moon and the making of the film An island, celebrity crushes, the common ground between Harry Nilsson and Mariah Carey, the differences between The Leaf Label and 4AD, their collaboration with Daniel Bjarnason and the Messing Orchestra for the Reich Effect Festival at the Savoy Theatre in Cork, the secret location for work on their new album, their Efterkids music education program and being “married” to music. Listen out too for an unexpected rendition of The Beatles’ Penny Lane.

AN ISLAND - 3rd TEASER - Vincent Moon & Efterklang from Rumraket on Vimeo.

The gig they played in Cork (the night after I did the interview) was a powerful, even emotional event. More thoughts on it here.

Driver Drive Faster - Open house (aA Recordings)

2011-09-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

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 interlude about 1m30 in). A mile back makes like a strutting 1973 Bowie momentarily, before striking out for gloriously downbeat pop pastures. The arrangements are clever and unexpected but never overplayed, driven along by inventive, restless backbeats. There are shades of Mercury Rev (via The Band) in their more creative moments. But overall it’s closer to the kind of fertile English folk-pop territory that Darren Hayman has ploughed to great effect recently. It’s literate (as you’d expect from a band named after the opening line of a C.S. Lewis book) and relevant to now, but most importantly it’ll have you humming along with one fantastic pop tune after another.

They May Talk - Driver Drive Faster from Driver Drive Faster on Vimeo.