For many music snobs, pop is sugar coated candy – devoid of class or staying power: disposable, throwaway. But what if you’re making pop music, it’s not sugar-coated candy, and you’re not in the pop charts? Broadcast are using their own definition of pop music, and challenging the music snobs along the way.
“When we started the band, it was based on the idea to produce pop songs, but to colour them differently,†says Broadcast founding member James Cargill. “To try to create more interest in the sound around them,†he continues. “Like the United States of America did, who were our favourite band when we started. That goal is still what we try to do today.†(The United States of America were a guitar-less experimental rock band active for two years in the late “60s.)
At the end of 2005, Broadcast arrived with the soulfully mechanistic Tender Buttons full-length album as a two piece (consisting of vocalist Trish Keenan and multi-instrumentalist Cargill). A career highlight, Tender Buttons is the complete package. It’s evolved and otherworldy – a sonic document of cohesiveness from a band at a very interesting destination. The Future Crayon documents their long journey as an evolving studio band up to that point.
The Future Crayon, a collection of non-album tracks from EPs, flipsides and compilation albums is probably their strangest album to date. These are the tracks that, for whatever reason, didn’ make any of their three full length studio albums. Trish Keenan’ bewitching croon always hits the spot. Broadcast create a modern and even futuristic racket, their “60s influences providing a starting point and not a destination.
The key to Broadcast’s music is the palate of tones and textures they colour their sounds with. Broadcast consistently make bold choices in the studio – and make them work. Hazy drony organs, bursts of flaring static, wide open spaces dripping with atmosphere, Broadcast are studio conjurers, and while perfection isn’ their goal they often come close.
Most tracks on Future Crayon feature acoustic drums and Broadcast’s satisfyingly bent take on pop music. A strange and wonderful (slightly sugary) trip.
Daniel Jumpertz
