From the Warp Records website:

Birminghams Broadcast transmit radiophonic psychedelia with a sinister, spy movie swing. The edgy atmospheres generated by quartet of Trish Kennan, Roj Stevens, Tim Felton and James Cargill is the sound of a group out of time, out on a limb. When we formed Britpop was the big thing, says Roj. I think part of our frustration is as much to do with a sense of dissatisfaction with the music around us as the desire to create something stimulating. The acclaim created by their debut album The Noise Made By People suggests theyre unlikely to feel isolated for too long.

Like Stereolab, kindred souls and former benefactors who released two of the groups pre-Warp singles on their Duophonic label, Broadcast are a group who transmute the sounds of the past into relics of the near future, their vinyl heroes the 60s harbingers of electronic pop whose revenant frequencies segue seamlessly into the present. According to James theyre artists that seem really fresh because very few people have picked up on their ideas. Groups like LA experimental pop unit The United States Of America or American Spring, conceived by Beach Boy Brian Wilson as a vanity-vehicle for his wife and a space to test out some of his wilder production ideas. The United States Of America were a group we were all into from the start, reveals Roj. They used a lot of weird electronic noises but fitted them into the pattern of pop songs. And they did it with real integrity.

At its best The Noise Made By People performs the edge-walking act of its audio ancestors. Its emphatically a pop album but doesnt shirk its avant responsibilities. In fact its deliberately unpretty. Percussion rumbles and rattles as if composed by restive poltergeists possessed of an uncanny rhythmic savvy, or resembles the exotic rhythms Brian Wilson imported from parts as far off as Polynesia in a bid to realise the universal music he heard in his head during the making of Pet Sounds. While Wilson described Pet Sounds timeless tableaux as his teenage symphonies to God, Broadcast songs are hermetic hymns, electronic sonatas for souls left out in the cold. Listen to the pop concrete of Echos Answer, with its downbeat clavichord triads and shrill cyborg strings shimmering around Trishs crystalline vocals and it sounds like a lullaby gone wrong. I think theres a still a sense among people working in avant garde areas and pop areas that the two shouldnt meet in the middle, says James. Were influenced by a lot of soundtracks, but were not interested in using that form. We try to push all of those elements into a pop song. Thats the challenge. And to let that change the shape of the song, adds Trish.

Its no secret that The Music Made By People had a difficult birth. Pregnant with promise and their heads filled with the ambition to synthesise an album that could square up to the epics that had ignited their musical ardour, Broadcast retreated to the recording studio only to lose their muse. Beset by false dawns, spiralling debts and the loss of their drummer, the group became engaged in a war of attrition with their own creativity. The project soon became a revolving door for aspirant producers, the mixing desk jockeys labouring before their faders, fruitlessly trying to facilitate Broadcasts unattainable vision. Broadcast describe this fallow period as Six months of false starts.

Even Squarepusher Tom Jenkinson was temporarily brought into the fold to unblock the impasse. At this stage we were really sick of the whole thing, recalls Roj. The looseness in approach really helped, it was like going to a relaxation class. Keith (York, the groups reserve drummer) and Tom would hand us items of percussion to play and it was like that film Awakenings when they throw the ball to the catatonic patients and they respond. You suddenly came to life and thought I can enjoy this. It didnt teach us anything technical, admits James, it was more about absorbing that attitude.

Broadcasts vision finally swam into focus when the group assembled their own studio at the Custard Factory, a multi-purpose office/art/performance/club space situated in Digbeth, Birminghams Irish quarter, the old stomping ground of young soul rebels Dexys Midnight Runners. It was a whole new world to us, explains James. But I dont think youll find many bands who produce their own album from scratch, without too much prior knowledge of recording and do it in a year. Trish confirms it took them a long time to harmonise with the technology. We probably made a lot of the very common mistakes that producers save you from making because of the experience they have, like getting a great sound but the performance not being there and vice versa.

Though now fully conversant with the art of studio craft and forging solid bonds with audiences by maturing into a potent live act unrecognisable from their nervy early performances, the same failure to communicate that impeded TNMBPs recording finds form in Broadcasts lyrical obsessions. Papercuts spins out the refrain The writing for pleasure/you never let me read, words used not to communicate the deepest, unspoken emotions but to shield them as secret. The lyric of Work And Non Works Message From Home hinges on a note left deliberately unread by its recipient before asking Why do I open my mouth/where I know silence should have been? Broadcasts communication anxiety focuses around a fascination for literature and the land of fiction that starts to make sense when you discover The Book Lovers ripped its lines from Herman Hess. But its clear any connections are forged by the subconscious. I hardly ever read any books, confesses Trish laughing, cutting line of inquiry dead.

But then theyre a group who like to keep their secrets close. Youll just have to listen to The Noise Made By People to unlock the mysteries of Broadcasts internal world. ......[Read Less]