The Underground of Happiness

27 tunes to mark the 27th anniversary of Serge Gainsbourg's death in March 1991. The Provocateur Extraordinaire. Playlist Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin – Je t’aime (moi non plus) Serge Gainsbourg – Le poinconneur des Lilas Mick Harvey feat. Anita Lane – The song of slurs Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot – Initials B.B. Serge Gainsbourg – Mambo miam miam Jane Birkin – C’est la vie qui veut ca Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin – Ballade de Melody Nelson Jean-Claude Vannier – La girafe au ballon Charlotte Gainsbourg – Le chat du café des artistes Mick Harvey – Intoxicated Man Jean-Claude Vannier – Danse de l’enfant et du Roi des Mouches Anna Karina – Roller girl (from the soundtrack of the film Anna ) Michael Stipe – L’hotel Beck – Wave Charlotte Gainsbourg – Rest Serge Gainsbourg – New York USA Serge Gainsbourg & Jane Birkin – 69 Année Érotique Serge Gainsbourg & Michel Colombier – La Horse (from the soundtrack of the film La Horse )...

A couple more great cuts from the Best of 2017 annals this week (check around the blog for more on that). This is the Kit who are in Ireland this week – Cork tonight, Dublin tomorrow – another great psych pop dance tune. Mick Harvey with the brilliant guest vocal turn of Andrea Schroeder giving Serge Gainsbourg’s ‘Je t’aime’ a German twist. It’s magnificent. Then Ennio Morricone from the new live album recorded on recent European tour. Bliss. Django Django back with new music and it’s a cracker ahead of new album. Plus Charlotte Gainsbourg (one that got away from my Best of 2017 lists but it's never too late). Dreamy, heartbreaking, sublime downtempo dance music. Take it how you like. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness.blogspot.com www.facebook.com/theundergroundofhappiness Twitter: UndergroundOfHappy Playlist 474 Tues Jan 16 2018 11.00am-12.00pm (repeate...

A number of soundtrack cuts on the show this week plus a couple of great a capella tracks. Jean Claude Vannier is best known for arranging some of Serge Gainsbourg's greatest songs. He was also a composer in his own right and experimenter in all kinds of genres. Here we have a female choir singing, vocalising, exhaling, finger clicking, foot stomping...it's fantastic stuff. Rebekah Del Rio giving a great song one of the most magnificent cover makeovers ever, as used brilliantly in the David Lynch film Mulholland Drive . Mica Levi from the film Jackie , a glorious piece of musical counterpoint - the light as a feather flute with the deep sea draw of the cellos. Jerome Moross with an iconic western soundtrack from The Big Country. And Seti The First , not a soundtrack per se but it feels like it could be music for a film - thrilling, poised, orchestral instrumentals. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed...

Mick Harvey has just released his 4th album of Serge Gainsbourg interpretations, the wonderful Intoxicated Women . The first track on it is a great cover of 'Je t'aime', in German ('Ich liebe dich') with the memorable vocals of Andrea Schroeder taking the part of Jane Birkin . Depending on your susceptibility to female sighs and intimations, very possibly not safe for work. Any excuse for a classic cut from the man himself Serge, a bit of Melody Nelson with tremendous orchestrations by Jean Claude Vannier . Benoit Pioulard, August Wells, Happyness, OOIOO all playing around or about these parts soon. Basil Kirchin is a revered cult figure in outsider music (subject of a recent festival in Hull), check his gorgeous mixture of jazz and birdsong/field recordings. And The Saxophones , a sublime late night disquieting dream of a song. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundo...

Another absolute joy of an album of Serge Gainsbourg interpretations from the former Bad Seed (his fourth and apparently final), this time focusing mainly on the outstanding but maybe a shade lesser known back catalogue of duets. It begins with a German language version of ‘Je t’aime (Moin non plus)’. It’s a bold move taking on a nailed on classic first up but there’s no risk really when the material is in such experienced and sympathetic hands. ‘Ich liebe dich (Ich dich auch nicht)’ ranks as one of the all time great Gainsbourg versions, the lead female part taken by the German singer Andrea Schroeder. And I have to say she trumps Jane Birkin in the plausibility stakes, her delivery full of sumptuous exhalations which tail off exquisitely. (Plus those guttural “ch” consonants are all soft and gooey.) Or maybe it’s just that she’s an older woman than Birkin was so her breath seems to carry more meaning, more weight. The effect is not so much sexual as existential and it’s mo...

Peter Walsh appeared twice in this week's show. First in his own right as The Apartments , from his most recent wonderful album No song, no spell, no madrigal . Then guesting on the final album from Piano Magic , what a voice, lived in, soulful, stoic but full of sadness and regret. The Saxophones are a new band on me and I like what I hear. There's a hint of 50s rock n roll balladry about this song but in a more hushed atmosphere which is entrancing. Mick Harvey is back with another wonderful album of Serge Gainsbourg interpretations, lots of tremendous duets, many in German which is superb to hear. New music from Canada's The Dears , sounding as fresh as ever. UK out there jazz from The Comet Is Coming & Dinosaur , both playing in Ireland soon. And some Jacques Tati soundtrack music from Frank Barcellini . Marvellous. More on these pages. The Underground of Happiness uplifting pop music of every creed www.theundergroundofhappiness....

An album released earlier in the year which has appropriately (given the artist involved) burned its way slowly into my consciousness. Mick Harvey is a name half-known to many people, here’s a good recap from a Pitchfork review recently. http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/18170-mick-harvey-four-acts-of-love/ Pinpointing Mick Harvey’s identity as a musician has always required a little triangulation. Of his three main points of reference, the closest is Nick Cave, whom Harvey played with in their fledgling band Boys Next Door, then the Birthday Party, and on to the Bad Seeds-- whose primal menace and eerie tenderness Harvey added to immeasurably. Harvey also spent years in Simon Bonney’s collective Crime and the City Solution; by the 90s he’d added a third coordinate, French pop legend Serge Gainsbourg, the source of material for his first two solo albums, 1995’s Intoxicated Man and 1997’s Pink Elephants, the latter of which dared to offer a single Harvey composition. When Harv...

I've been going back through one of my favourite DVD's, Serge Gainsbourg : D'autres nouvelles des étoiles , a 2 x disc compilation of tv appearances, broadcasts and interviews from 1958 to 1989, which Mercury/Universal brought out in 2005. It's fascinating stuff and gives a thorough overview of every stage in Gainsbourg's career, from the early jazz-influenced tunes, to lush string orchestrations, and on to later reggae experiments. (As with everything, I'm sure you might find a free download somehere, but the extensive sleevenotes and credits make it well worth the purchase price.) It was Mick Harvey's Gainsbourg cover albums of the 1990's (interpretations is probably a better word), which my friend Grand Snr turned me on to, that gave me a proper obsession with the man. Those were Intoxicated man (1995) and Pink elephants (1997), both on Mute Records . This was the first time (that I know of) that Gainsbourg's lyrics had been translated into ...